Fighting for a Purpose
by erttheking
Summary: The Human-Covenant war has been over for 34 years and old wounds have nearly finished healing. But when an army from another galaxy known as the CIS attacks the Jackals war will begin again. Ahsoka/OC
1. The Invasion of Eyan

Fighting for a Purpose

Chapter 1

Invasion of Eyan

Note at some points I will use the real names of the Covenant species which are located below

Jackals-Kig-yar

Grunts-Unggoy

Drone-Yanme'e

Hunter-Mgalekgolo

Engineer-Huragok

Brute-Jiralhanae

Elite-Sangheili

The Human-Covenant war had been over for 34 years making it 2587. Tensions between species had lessened and in a good deal of cases dissipated. A great deal of changes had occurred. The Brutes had experienced an enlightenment resulting in more peaceful ways although their tempers still existed. The Elites had begun training the Grunts much more thoroughly teaching them to control their fear resulting in Grunts that posed quite a bit of a threat to their opponents.

UNSC technology had been bolstered by Covenant technology resulting in massive military upgrades. All UNSC soldiers had also been given genetic augmentations which now had a 100% survival rate. Marines were now outfitted with MJOLNIR armor which was now much lighter and thanks to the Covenant technology fairy cheap. Snipers and scouts were outfitted with the unshielded Mark IV version while the rest had a shielded Mark V. ODST's armor still looked the same but shields had been added to them therefore they had semi-powered armor. They used this to keep a low profile as they were often deployed behind enemy lines and MJOLNIR armor was very bulky and could attract unwanted attention. To top it off humanity had rebuilt it's colonies fleets ,which were now massively upgraded, and armies. All of this made humanity a force to be reckoned with.

In an attempt to further ease the tensions between races "Unity" ships had been created. Summed up unity ships were crewed by a mixture of species. Surprisingly not only did these ships ease the tensions but they also proved to be highly effective. This story begins on one of these "Unity" ships the CSS-class battle cruiser _Glorious Victory_ currently in Slipspace.

"3,2,1,finished," thought ODST Lance Corporal Aaron Colton as he sniped down the last of the targets in the range. Smiling at his perfect sniping spree he holstered his sniper rifle onto his back and double checked to make sure that he still had his dual SMGs. The UNSC had upgraded all of their projectile weapons by increasing the magazine size. They had also copied the Brutes by superheating the bullets, which had very satisfying results as they easily tore and burned through metal and made a fair dent in sheilds. Walking out of the shooting range Aaron made his way to the "Rec" room. When he opened the door he was not at all surprised with what he found. A Special Operations Elite reading from a holo-pad. The name of this particular Elite was Ramore Altre. **(A/N sorry if my elite names are lousy) **Ramore wore the usual dark SpecOp armor with the exception that he wore a combat helmet because as he said "The SpecOp helmet crushes my mandibles."

"Reading again huh?" asked Aaron. Ramore only looked up for a second to nod before looking back at the holo-pad. One day Ramore had been feeling adventurous, gone onto the human database, and clicked on Literature. Ever since that day he had become infatuated with human literature. He had already read nearly all of Shakespeare and was scrounging around for some new authors. "What is it this time?" asked Aaron.

Ramore looked up with the Sangheili equivalent of a smile. "A tale about a man who was wrongfully imprisoned called The Shawshank Redemption. I just found it and I have a feeling it will be promising."

"You know," said Aaron "I'm pretty sure we have a remastered film about that in the database."

Ramore looked very interested. "I'll have to check that out after I'm finished with…" but the rest of his sentence was cut off by a broadcast that was heard throughout the entire ship. "Attention all crew we have just received a distress call from the Kig-yar home world Eyan. "They are being invaded by an army of unknown origin known as the CIS. We are en route to assist and everyone should be prepared for combat we will be arriving in a few minutes." Placing the holo-pad on a table Ramore stood up pulling a carbine off of his back and making sure that his dual energy swords were still attached to his thighs. After that they both exited the room.

A huge stream of soldiers was heading in the same direction that they were. Grunts, Brutes, Humans, Elites, Jackals, Hunters, and Drones flying above the rest. When they reached the hanger they climbed onto their predestinated Phantom along with a handful of other soldiers. Aaron looked around at the others on the Phantom and saw two other ODSTs two more SpecOp Elites two Brute Minors and a Chieftain. The doors on the Phantom slid shut and the Brute Minors manned the controls that would fire the plasma cannons. The Elite Minor who was piloting the drop ship sat at his seat the controls gripped in his hands. The intercom sparking to life again saying "Dropping out of Slipspace in 5,4,3,2,1 LAUNCH!"

The hanger bay door opened and the two dozen Phantoms in the hanger launched accompanied by Seraph fighters of slightly lager numbers. Eyan the Jackal home word had ten ships in orbit that had never been seen before by anyone in the UNSC or the former Covenant. Nine of them looked like warships but the tenth one looked like a sphere with a ring around it. It was obvious that they had launched ground forces down to the planet for a couple of drop ships were still leaving. Looking out of the rear window Aaron saw that six other ships had responded to the distress call 3 UNSC ships, another CSS-class battle cruiser and two Carriers. A couple hundred Phantoms and Pelicans were flying towards the planet escorted by Seraph and Eagle fighters. Eagles were the upgraded version of the Longsword. They were shielded had missiles with plasma warheads and were equipped with plasma cannons.

The Elite minor pushed a button on the dashboard that had begun to blink and a hologram of an Elite Zealot appeared. "Pilot you have new orders. You will not be joining the landing on Eyan. We have discovered by the amount of communications coming from it the ship with a sphere for a core is their command ship. You are to board it and capture their commander for he should be able to provide us with valuable information about this CIS that is all." the hologram dissipated.

The pilot changed course heading straight for the command ship two Seraph fighters accompanying them. A large number of fully automated fighters had been deployed by the CIS but they were distracted by the force heading to the planet and didn't seem to notice the Phantom heading towards the control ship. "Why do I get the feeling that the shit's about to hit the fan here?" asked one of the ODSTs

"Because odds are that's what's going to happen," said Ramore truthfully.

When they were thirty seconds away the Seraphs broke off and rejoined the main invasion force. When they were twenty five seconds away a couple of fighters that a stayed behind noticed them. The Brutes began to fire the Plasma turrets which took down a most of the fighters while the rest rolled to avoid the hostile fire. One of the fighters managed to get a couple of good shots at one of the engines before the Brutes eliminated the rest of them. "Hold on!" shouted the pilot "We're going in hot!" The Phantom sped out of control towards one of the hanger bays which thankfully had not yet closed from when the fighters had launched. The Phantom crash landed in the fighter bay but the second it was at a safe speed the doors opened and all of the passengers, including the pilot, jumped out.

Tar Muuk was having a bad day. It had started off good enough he had just found a planet perfect to raid for resources. Resources meant money so as a Neimoidian that appealed perfectly well to him. However several things had gone wrong in quick succession. First off, despite receiving heavy causalities the inhabitants of this planet were putting up one hell of a fight. Second a fleet had come out of nowhere launched an armada of drop ships and was know engaging his fleet. And to top it all off an enemy drop ship had managed to slip into the fighter bay. Watching on the monitor Tar Muuk saw that they clearly had superior infantry technology all of them seemed to have shields around them. They had quickly eliminated the droids in the hanger and were making their way towards the bridge and him. Tar Muuk's bad mood was only fueled when a projectile tore through one of his fully shielded warships destroying it. **(A/N upgraded MAC gun)** Wheeling around to face the five Magna Guards behind he shouted "Well don't just stand there do something! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

Aaron fired another spurt of bullets out of his 100 bullet clip SMGs and another couple of droids fell. He and the rest of the assault team were destroying droids left and right with no trouble, Ramore in particular helping by going on a headshot spree with his carbine. Aaron couldn't help but feel that this was incredibly easy. These droids didn't seem very battle capable and the only ones that he actually worried about were the ones that rolled and deployed shields. The Chieftain was able to kill these by smashing them with his hammer and the ones that he didn't were brought down by concentrated fire which caused their shields to collapse. As a matter of fact the Chieftain seemed to be having a grand time. He was ahead of everybody else smashing every droid that moved with his hammer which due to improved technology could run indefinitely. "Seriously," said Aaron "That guy needs to deflate his head a bit. The Humans and Elites nodded in approval and even the Brute Minors looked like they thought he had a point.

After fighting their way through to the bridge they had only lost the pilot a SpecOp elite an ODST and one of the Brute Minors. Considering the number of droids they had cut down to get there it was a rather impressive feat. Reaching the entrance to the bridge the squadron found that a blast door had been activated. "Stand back," growled the Chieftain. The others backed up all of them had a pretty good idea what he was about to do. The Chieftain began slamming the door with his hammer causing a large dent to appear that got bigger and bigger with each swing. The Chieftain brought the hammer back and, with a war cry, let out a particularly violent swing. The blast door was blown back to the other side of the bridge as the assault team charging in. Ramore swapped out his carbine for his energy swords due to the fact that is carbine was out of ammunition, and energy swords like gravity hammers had been upgraded so that they could run indefinitely.

Standing in-between them and an alien who appeared to be the captain were five more droids only these droids looked different. They were wearing some sort of robe and were armed with staffs that sparked with electricity. Ramore charged at the nearest one, blocking an overhead swipe with his left sword and cutting the droid in half with his right. He quickly advanced on another one swinging both of his swords down at it. The droid raised it's staff in a attempt to protect itself but Ramore cut right through that staff and the droid. The Chieftain had smashed two of the others droids and used the blade section of his hammer do disarm the last one. Laughing triumphantly the Chieftain picked the droid up by the head and crushed it's head. Dropping it he advanced on the captain hammer in hands saying "Now you're going to come with us or AHHH!"

The droid whose head he had crushed, despite lacking a head, had gotten retrieved it's staff and run the Chieftain through with it. Letting out a roar of rage the Brute Minor charged at the droid, clearly forgetting that he had a perfectly good spiker in his hand, and was dispatched with a vicious uppercut blow. Aaron aimed both of his SMGs at the droid and opened fire. The droid collapsed before the hail of superheated bullets but Aaron didn't stop firing until his clips were empty. Ramore advanced on the alien captain and whacked the but of his head knocking him out. Aaron looked out of the windows to see that the majority of the CIS fleet was in ruins with the surviving few badly damaged and fighting a lost fight. Behind him he heart Ramore talking into a com link. "This is Ramore Altre. We have captured the CID commander."

This is the beginning of my new story. I plan on alternated between this story and another story I am working on. So my fans aren't disappointed I am going to attempt to get one chapter of at least one story up per day. This may fail but I'm gonna try anyway. Also a plan on putting in a pairing but from the description this chapter I bet that you can guess the pairing.

PS. Bungie loves putting in 7 references in halo games so I shall put some in. 7 references for this chapter. The story takes place 34 years after the war 3+4=7. 7 ships arrived to fight the CIS.


	2. Meeting a New Friend

Chapter 2

Meeting a New Friend

Ages in Human years

Aaron-18

Ramore-25

Ahsoka-16

I made Ahsoka a little older for…well you'll see later on in the story

Aaron gave a sigh as he relaxed on the bed in his quarters. They were at war. The CIS captain had been interrogated and he had told the Allied Species, that's what the new alliance was calling themselves at least for now, all about he CIS. Apparently the CIS were from a different galaxy had recently seceded from a larger government. The CIS had adapted a policy of attacking planets in order to boost their economy and Eyan had apparently been the latest target. The leaders of every single species in the alliance had been unanimous. War was declared on the CIS. The invasion of Eyan had been a month ago and the casualty reports had come in. While the ships that had arrived to support and the landing force had suffered little loss thousands of Jackals had been killed solders and civilians. In response to this genocide for the first time ever the _Glorious Victory _had left the Milky Way Galaxy. Ships had been organized into attack squadrons of ten made up of mixtures of species and sent into the new galaxy with search and destroy orders for all CID instillations. Some ships were Human, some Brute, some Elite, some Unity but pretty much all of them had Engineers onboard to keep the ship running.

Aaron got up feeling restless. Advancements in Slipspace technology allowed ships to travel thousands of light-years per day but despite this the attack squadron he was assigned to had only encountered the CID once. The battle had been quick and easy yet massively helpful. They had attacked and destroyed a ship that was acting as a relay station. Before the ship was destroyed however a stealth Phantom and slipped in and transmitted a virus into the ship causing the virus to be sent out to everything that the ship was sending communications to. The virus deleted all data in whatever it had infected and caused it to be completely filled with copies of an old human video which played non-stop with the system's controls disabled. **(A/N here's a link to that video ****.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0****) **The lack of combat yet the fact that the CIS was out there made Aaron incredibly restless so he decided to get some target practice dome.

Aaron felt a little more relaxed as he sniped moving targets. After awhile Ramore walked in holding a beam rifle. Aaron was feeling a little cocky so he said "You up for a little sniping contest?"

"The usual who can snipe the most in 60 second?" asked Ramore. Aaron nodded "I'm in. What are the stakes?"

Aaron thought for a second and said "Just for fun. I go first" Aaron looked down his scope as the targets came up again. He smiled as he pulled the trigger.

"You won by one target," said Ramore as they walked out of the sniper range Aaron's smug grin hidden my the polarized helmet. There was a loud whooshing noise and they knew that to mean that they had just dropped out of Slipspace. Ignoring that they two friends continued to walk and talk when their comm. units went off. They received a message from the ship's Elite shipmaster to report to the hanger. Confused Aaron and Ramore did as they were told and went to the hanger bay.

When they arrived there they found the Shipmaster in silver armor waiting for them. "I read a report on you two, apparently you had a hand in capturing Tar Muuk." Aaron and Ramore nodded. "Impressive actions and you don't let it go to your head, that's very good. But I didn't call you down here just to flatter you I need your help with a particular mission." The Shipmaster pointed out of the fighter bay windows. Following his finger Ramore and Aaron looked out and repressed gasps. The were looking out onto a debris field of CIS ships and ships they did not recognize. "My guess is that the CIS had a battle with another faction and judging by the ratio of unknown ships to CIS ships it looks like the CIS won. What we're going to do is go out in a Phantom a look for survivors. Any questions? No? good." The Shipmaster turned around and climbed into a Phantom and Aaron and Ramore followed suit.

"Jesus," Aaron whispered to himself as their Phantom dove in and out of the wreckage. The Shipmaster was flying the ship while Aaron and Ramore scanned the wreckage with heartbeat sensors. The lifeless bodies of people in white armor were floating all over the place. In addition to the bodies destroyed fighters littered the wreckage. Most of them were Vulture Droids as the CIS called them although a great deal fighters with pilots were there also.

The Shipmaster gave a mournful sigh. "Well it looks like those bastards were careful to kill every last one. We better head back."

Aaron nodded and turned back to the heartbeat sensor he had been looking at for the past fifteen minutes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small blip. He was so surprised by this that he stood up in surprise causing the two Elites to stare at him. "I think I found one," Aaron said excitedly "Over there," he said pointing in the direction of the blip. Not needing to be told twice the Shipmaster redirected the ship to that direction. The blip got closer and closer until it pointed to a disabled fighter. The pilot, an alien with orange skin and what appeared to be tentacles coming out of the head. "Let's get it out of there," said Aaron

Ahsoka's eyelids felt like they were made of metal and her body like it had been sapped of all energy. She didn't know where she was only that she was lying on what felt like a comfortably soft bed. "Well," she thought "The Separatists wouldn't bother giving me a soft bed so safe bet they didn't capture me. She felt like there was something that she should be remembering, something important but she couldn't think of it. And then it all came back, the ambush, her desperately trying to create a route for her and her men to escape, a Vulture Droid hitting her engines. With a burst of energy that washed away all weariness she sat bolted up into a sitting position letting out a small shriek. Panting heavily she looked around. She appeared to be in some sort of medical facility. Reaching down to her belt she found, with a rush of relief that her light saber was still there.

"You're awake that's a good thing," said a voice. Ahsoka jumped violently and turned to see that a Human wearing black armor from the neck down was standing near her bed. Standing next to him was a creature that was easily 8 feet tall and had some sort of strange mandibles. The human walked over to her bed extending his hand saying "My name is Aaron Colton and that is Ramore Altre. What's your name?"

Ahsoka hesitated for a minute before saying "Ahsoka Tano," and extending her own hand to shake Aaron's. After she let go Ahsoka asked "Where am I and how did I get here? And who are you people?"

Aaron suppressed a sigh and said "Are you well enough to walk?" Ahsoka gingerly got to her feet before nodding. "Walk with me," said Aaron "We have a lot of talking to do."

Well a little shorter than the first chapter but I had to cut it there in order to avoid all of the long boring paragraphs dedicated to explaining things that the reader already knows, for when the next chapter begins all of that will be done. How Ahsoka got in that situation will be explained next chapter thought. Well please review.


	3. A Plead for Help

**Chapter 3**

**A Plead for Help**

**(A/N for those of you that couldn't get the link in the last chapter to work the video was Never Gonna Give you up)**

**(A/N the Allied Species have spent the last 34 years researching technology and reverse engineering forerunner tech therefore their weapons and shields are a lot stronger then they were in the game ex. All UNSC ships have a MAC the equivalent of a Super MAC)**

"Well," thought Ahsoka as she walked down the hallway of the _Glorious Victory _"This is actually pretty enjoyable." She had been on _Glorious Victory _for a couple of days now and she had learned a lot. In one day she had been the first one in the Republic to make contact with eight new species. In the same day! Although these humans looked similar to humans in the republic she had checked the DNA and noticed that there were key differences. Most noticable was that none of these new species had midichlorians. " I guess master Qui Gon was wrong," thought Ahsoka "Life can exist without midichlorians."

The Allied Species had saved her life and they were offering her shelter although they did ask her a lot of questions. Considering that they had a common enemy Ahsoka had not considered this to be a big deal and she had been more than happy to tell these Allied Species everything there was to tell. About the Republic, about the Separatists, about Jedi, about Sith, and everything else there was to know about her galaxy. In turn she had learned quite a few things, about the Human-Covenant war, about the Great Schism, about the SPARTAN project which had been abandoned due to it being immoral. But two things that she had learned about stuck out and made her shudder. The Halo rings and the Flood. She wasn't sure which was worse weapons that could wipe out all life in a galaxy or parasites that could infect other living things and make it one of them. She shook her head neither was currently a threat and she reminded herself of her destination.

The ODST Aaron Colton was showing Ramore Altre an old human movie and he had invited her also. She had quickly become friends with the two of them and she didn't even need to think about it before she said yes. Odds are she might be stuck with this attack squadron for awhile for they couldn't just send off a ship to drop her off at a Republic base. Normally this lack of help would have irritated her but now Ahsoka was finding hard to become frustrated for reasons she wasn't quite sure of. "Maybe my Jedi training is finally paying off," she muttered although for some reason she was pretty sure that wasn't it.

"This war just keeps getting weirder and weirder," said Aaron as he set up a holographic projector in the leisure room.

Ramore nodded in approval "First weird in a bad way with the CIS then in a good way Ahsoka." Just a few seconds after he said the Togruta's name then she walked into the room.

"Just in time," said Aaron standing up "I just got the projector working. Now bear with me the movie is only in 2D but there's a reason we still have a copy after 600 years." Dimming the lights in the room and activating the projector Aaron sat down with the other two as The Shawshank Redemption played.

"I knew that that story was promising." said Ramore as the three of them walked out of the leisure room.

"He dug his way out of prison with that little toothpick?" asked Ahsoka.

"The will can be a powerful thing Ahsoka," said Aaron "Put your heart into it and you can do nearly anything."

Ahsoka smiled and looked like she was about to respond when the voice of the ship master boomer over the intercom. "Attention all hands we have just received the following distress call." The group of three stopped dead in their tracks as they listened to the recording. "This is General Obi-Wan Kenobi to and Republic ships that may receive this message Naboo is being invaded by the Separatists and we don't have the manpower required to stop them. Half of our ships have already been destroyed and the capital city Theed has already been captured. If we don't get reinforcements then the whole planet will fall!" Ahsoka gasped as she heard the message play out. The shipmaster spoke again "We are five minutes away from the origin of the distress call and we are en route to help." Ahsoka didn't listen to the rest of the shipmaster's speech and simply bolted towards the hanger with Aaron and Ramore hot on her heels.

As a result of their speed they were one of the first to reach the hanger. "Any particular reason you sprinted here so fast?" asked Aaron not out of breath due to his genetic augmentation.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi sent that message." said Ahsoka "I know him he's a very good friend of mine."

In an attempt to comfort her Aaron gave her a small hug before saying "It's going to be ok we're going to help him." Ahsoka gave a small smile as the rest of the hanger filled up with Allied Species solders. They turned to see the shipmaster making his way towards them.

"Everyone listen up!" he shouted as the room fell silent. "We don't know what kind of a situation we're flying into so until we get a good idea about what we're going we are going to be delaying the launching of drop ships." turning to face the group of three he said "Now I've got a little trip for you three to make."

The attack squadron came out of Slipspace to find six CIS ships firing on two badly damaged republic ones. Republic ones the three UNSC ships present fired their MAC guns. One of the rounds missed while the other two tore through two of the ships effectively destroying them. The mixture of former covenant ships bombarded the remaining ships with point laser turrets and plasma torpedoes resulting in two more destroyed ships. The two surviving ships attempted to jump into Hyperspace. One of the ships engines had been damaged and it exploded went it attempted to jump while the other one successfully escaped. A few minutes after the battle had ended a green Phantom made it's way towards the Republic ships.

Obi-Wan Kenobi walked towards the hanger. He had just received transmission from an alien known as a Sangheili who was commanding the fleet that had just saved the rest of his. He had said he was sending over someone whom he would be very sure would be able to convince him that they were here to help. Cody was walking alongside him. "I find it hard to believe that these people have anyone that knows enough about us to really understand what is going on here," he said as the arrived in the hanger with a green ship landing in it. "As a matter of fact I'm willing to bet that the odds of this person being as good as they say he his is about as likely as Ahsoka still being alive." Obi-Wan shoot a glare at Cody for his last comment. "Although it was true," he thought "Ahsoka's patrol hasn't been heard from in nearly a week now the odds of her being alive are… AHSOKA!" he said shouting the last word instead of thinking it.

Ahsoka exited the Phantom with Aaron and Ramore right behind her when she heard her name shouted and saw Obi-Wan waving his arm at her. Smiling she waved her own hand as Aaron whispered "I told you he'd be fine,"

Obi-wan walked forward relieved to see that the Padawan was alive and well. Two people were standing behind her a Human and another Sangheili. "It's ok Master you can trust these people."

"Ahsoka it's great to see you again," said Obi-Wan But why didn't your patrol report in?"

Ahsoka's happy expression slid off her face as she said "The Separatists ambushed us. When these guys found my damaged fighter I was the only survivor." The Human and the Sangheili looked thoroughly depressed at this point for they had not forgotten that ship graveyard.

"Oh," said Obi-Wan mentally slapping himself for not realizing this fact which now seemed painfully obvious. "I'm sorry to hear about that."

"So," said the Human standing next to her in an attempt to change the subject "What's the situation on the planet. What's it called? Naboo."

"Oh yes," said Obi-wan "Well we were stationed her to guard the planet. We only had five ships when eight separatists ships attacked us. As you saw they were repelled but the Separatists still have a large ground force. They've taking Theed and now they're moving out to take the surrounding areas. It gets worse General Grievous is leading Separatist forces and they managed to capture Anakin who was leading our ground forces. Judging from his signal he's still alive and well in the Theed palace. But there are huge amount of vulture droids so unless that ship of yours can turn invisible you're not getting anywhere near…why are you grinning like that?"

Aaron grinned as Obi-Wan asked him why he was doing so. "Pal let me just say I think we'll be able to slip in there no problem."

Here's a hint to a location I plan on bringing my story to 03-49

Everyone can have one guess in which I will tell them if they're right or wrong any guesses after that will be ignored so think carefully.

Well now that's done I would really appreciate some reviews.


	4. The Second Battle of Naboo

Chapter 4

The Second Battle of Naboo

Aaron, Ahsoka, and Ramore were in a cloaked Phantom drop ship. Ramore was piloting the ship while Aaron and Ahsoka sat in the passenger area. They were heading towards the Theed royal palace to find, rescue, and extract Anakin. The main forces that the Allied Species had around Naboo would be landing outside the city and push their way in. They clearly weren't in a mood for playing around, as Shipmaster Vadmare Katar (**A/N Thought I'd give him a name)** had authorized the use of Scarabs.

Looking at Aaron Ahsoka noticed a fairly large knife on his belt. "Where did you get that knife?" she asked.

"Hm?" he said "Oh yeah I almost forgot." Taking the knife and it's sheath off of his belt. "I was thinking the other day that if you lost your lightsaber you wouldn't have a weapon so I went and got you this," he said holding out the knife towards her. Ahsoka hesitated for a few seconds before taking the knife. Partially drawing it she saw that the blade was made out of a pink crystal. "It's a Jackal knife," said Aaron "Once you stab something with it and release the grip you better move because you only have seconds before the crystal explodes." **(A/N Jackals actually do have this weapon in some of the Halo novels)**

Ahsoka smiled "Thanks Aaron you're the best." She felt an odd jumping feeling in her stomach that she was completely unfamiliar with. Deciding that the best thing to do was ignore it she attached the knife to her belt right next to her lightsaber.

"Ok we're almost there," said Ramore from the cockpit "You two better get ready to disembark. Ahsoka stood up taking out of lightsaber and Aaron followed suit taking out his SMGs, which he had attached suppressors to for this mission. Ramore landed the Phantom behind a building near the Theed Royal Palace where it was concealed. "Everyone remember where we parked," said Ramore as all three jumped out of the Phantom and closed the doors leaving it cloaked as they snuck towards the palace.

Captain Rex was standing on a plain from which Theed could be seen. He and the other clones there had been stained there to attempt to retake the Palace of Theed. With General Skywalker in enemy hands it was becoming difficult just to hold their current position. Rex had tried to take his place but the clankers were pressing in on them relentlessly. Most of his tanks and walkers had been destroyed and he huge amounts of dead and wounded. "And to top off the perfect day," he said sarcastically to himself "they're about to make another push."

He grimaced to himself and turned around to give his men the order to retreat when he heard two loud noises behind him, that sounded like something had hit the ground at a very high speed. He turned around and felt his jaw drop. Two massive purple walkers were standing on the plain facing the droid army. What appeared to be mouths opened and massive beams of green light shot at the droids devastating everything it touched. "Quite impressive isn't it," said a voice behind him. Rex wheeled around to see that a small green ship floating a couple of feet off of the ground behind him. Inside it was some sort of strange alien and General Kenobi.

"General Kenobi what the heck is going on?" Rex asked bewildered.

"Rex," said Obi-wan this is gonna be almost impossible to believe but, long story short, the separatists attacked a planet in another galaxy that was part of a larger alliance and now they're at war with the separatists also." Rex was lost for words as more drop ships dropped off some sort of tank like thing that fire curving plasma charges at the enemy. Rex was in awe as the forces of the newcomers began to push the droids back.

Aaron, Ahsoka, and Ramore managed to slip past the droid patrols and make it inside the palace. Checking a small holo-projector Ahsoka said "Anakin is in the throne room," and they sped off without another word. As they made their way up to the throne room they had to make their way past droid patrols which were swarming all over the palace. Most of the time Ramore was able to take them out using his active camouflage but, a couple of times Aaron and Ahsoka had needed to give him a hand. Aaron thought that this was a lot like when they had taken the CIS command ship, way too easy. While being that way before had felt empowering, this time it felt unnerving, like they were walking into a trap.

When they had reached the door to the throne room Aaron had still been unable to shake off the feeling that they were walking into a trap. "Ramore," he said rather suddenly "Activate your active camouflage,"

"What?" said the Elite looking rather puzzled

"I've got a bad feeling in my gut about this. Just active your camo," Aaron said in a voice that was halfway between forceful and pleading. Looking confused Ramore activated his active camouflage as Ahsoka began to cut through the door with her lightsaber. When she finished cutting through Aaron muttered "Me first stay here for now," and began to venture forward. At the opposite end of the room he saw an unconscious man in a chair with a collar around his neck and his limbs restrained to the chair. Aaron slowly made his way towards him when he heard a small barely audible cough, that was so soft that if his genetic augmentations hadn't enhanced his senses he probably would have missed it. Aaron froze. The cough hadn't come from behind him or, from in front of him. It had come from above.

As fast as he could Aaron produced his SMGs and pointed them at the ceiling. A large figure that had been clinging to the ceiling released its grip and dropped towards him, igniting two lightsabers one blue, one green. Throwing himself to his right and landing on one knee, Aaron jammed down the triggers of his SMGs. The droid that had landed where had had just been swung it's lightsabers at incoming bullets until puddles, from the melted bullets, began to from around it's feet. Before the droid could make a move towards Aaron, an invisible force began pushing the droid until it smashed through the window and fell out of the throne room. Ahsoka ran and helped Aaron to his feet, knowing the reason for what had just happening was Ramore tackling the droid, and he and Ahsoka ran towards Anakin. "The next time you say you have a feeling in your gut," said Ahsoka as she used the Force to break the restraints "I'm listening. I didn't know that General Grievous had the patience to wait for someone like that." As Aaron tore off the collar around Anakin's neck and picked him up in a fireman's carry she said "Shouldn't we go help Ramore?"

"Nah he can take care of himself. Besides we gotta get Anakin back to the Phantom," said Aaron as they left the throne room.

After he had pushed the droid and himself out of the window, Ramore kicked the droid with both of his feet which pushed him back towards the palace wall. Activating one of his energy swords, Ramore drove it into the wall in an attempt to slow his fall. It proved to be effective for when he had reached the ground, leaving a long vicious cut in the palace outer wall, he had reached a fairly slow speed. While he was sliding down he glanced at the sky and judging from what he saw another Allied Species attack squadron must have arrived. The droid that he had kicked had hit the ground, not too far away at full speed. Ramore activated his other energy sword as the droid got up still holding it's lightsabers and looking at him angrily. "What vile scum might you be?" Grievous said angrily.

"Ramore Altre, Sangheili Special Operations," answered Ramore "You don't recognize me species do you?"

"And why exactly should I?" Grievous snapped.

"Because," Ramore said angrily "One of your commanders went and attacked a planet that we were allied to. That's why the Allied Species declared war on you collective of cowards, because you can't even keep your own men in line. That and the universe would be a whole better without a bunch of dishonorable abominations around." To emphasize his disgust Ramore spat in Grievous' direction.

Grievous charged at Ramore throwing a random combination of vertical and horizontal swipes. Ramore, however, was very skilled with the energy and, he was able to block all off the droid's oncoming blows. Ramore jumped back and took up a fighting stance. He was using an old but rather effective Sangheili sword style, that involved letting your opponent attack you all out while you search for an opening. As Grievous charged again swiping stabbing forward with both of this lightsabers, Ramore jumped to his right while swinging his left-hand sword and was able a make a moderate cut on Grievous' chest.

Grievous roared in pain and looked like he was about to charge at Ramore again when two loud crashes came from behind Grievous. Both fighters turned in the direction and saw that two HEV pods **(A/N The pods that ODSTs use) **had been deployed and the occupants were climbing out. They were both Elites one was wearing grayish armor with runes carved into every visible surface, while the other one was missing his left mandibles and wore white/silver armor. "Damn," thought Ramore as both Elites activated energy swords in their right hands "Thel Vadam and Rtas Vadum coming to help me? This guy must be a big deal." **(A/N You actually thought that I was going to write a halo fan fiction without putting these guys in?)**

General Grievous, seeing that he was now outnumbered, did what he did best. He retreated. Rtas made to pursue him but Thel stopped him with his left arm. "Arbiter we cannot allow that coward to escape," Rtas said angrily "If he escapes he may be able to command another army to replicate the invasion that took place here."

Thel answered calmly "I have no intention of letting him escape old friend. I intend to let him run and lead us to another location for us to strike." This seemed to calm Rtas, for his muscles relaxed and he made no attempt to pursue the droid general. Thel turned to face Ramore saying "You are Ramore Altre correct?" Ramore nodded. "Judging by your expression you know who we are. Our attack squadron picked up the same SOS you did only we got here a little later an yours did. When we got here and heard about your rescue operation we'd thought that it would be a good idea to help but, clearly you were more than capable of taking care of yourself."

Ramore was about to reply when he heard a humming noise. Turning in the direction it cam from he saw the Phantom that they had taken here hovering above them. The Phantom activated it's gravity lift as Ramore walked towards it. Looking over his solders he said "All aboard," and stepped into it with Thel and Rtas right behind him.

The Phantom drop ship docked with the _Glorious Victory_. Vadmare Katar had gone back aboard the ship bringing Obi-Wan Kenobi with him. The plan was to pursue General Grievous for one of the republic ships had managed to get a fix on where this fighter was going when he made the jump to hyperspace. The _Glorious Victory _would be the only ship in this pursuit as the other ships had to attack other CIS positions and they still had to retake Naboo. The passengers of the drop ship got of out and made their way towards the bridge with Aaron and Ahsoka supporting Anakin, for although he had regained consciousness he was still a little weak from the collar that he had been wearing that cut him off from the force. "Come on up and at em Skyguy," Ahsoka said encouragingly. Anakin managed a weak smile.

"Man," thought Aaron "You really got love how she always manages to cheer you up." While this thought was going through his head Aaron felt an odd jumping feeling in his stomach which he decided to ignore for now. The entire crew felt an odd vibration throughout the ship as the ship went to Slipspace.

"That coward currently is running quite a distance," said Vadmare as he studied a holographic map with Obi-Wan "He's going all the way back to our galaxy. The territory he's heading to is uncharted so we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into." Obi-Wan was about to say something when a large group of people entered the bridge. He saw Anakin being supported by Ahsoka that ODST and several Sangheili behind him. "Ah good you're here," said Vadmare as Aaron and Ahsoka helped Anakin into a chair "Your timing is spot on we should be arriving right about now." There was another vibration as the ship dropped out of Slipspace and the personal on the bridge were able to see the system they had arrived in.

Aaron swore, Ahsoka shrieked, Ramore and Vadmare shouted in their native tongue, Rtas and Thel were infuriated ,and Obi-wan and Anakin were trying to understand what everyone was shouting about. In the system they had arrived in there was a massive structure orbiting the planet. It was a Halo.

That's were the hint dictated it was going

03-49

Instillation 03 with the monitor having the number 49

Well it's a little late and I think that it was little rushed (Then again I usually have a low opinion about my work) so please tell me how you liked it

P.S. I intend to be on this Halo for quite a few chapters.


	5. The Battle of Installation 03

Chapter 5

The Battle of Instillation 03

Not really any fighting this chapter I'm saving it for the next one

"A Goddam Halo," said Aaron bitterly "I really hate that fucking droid,"

"A what?" said Obi-Wan.

"It's a weapon of mass destruction master," said Ahsoka "It was built over 100,000 years ago by a species called the Forerunners to contain a parasitic life form called the Flood. The Forerunners eventually fired the Halos in order to starve the Flood by depriving them of hosts which they required to survive."

"So this Halo," said Anakin who was standing up his feet now fully recovered from the collar, "What exactly does it do?"

"It is a planetoid with it's own gravity, atmosphere, and ecosystem. Originally 7 of them were built, designed for studding the Flood," said Thel "But it's also a weapon that wipes out all sentient life within a 25,000 light-year radius. 100,000 years ago the Forerunners were at war with the Flood and had no choice but to fire the Halos."

"Well on the bright side the Flood are gone and you don't have to worry about them anymore." said Anakin smiling.

The smile slid off his face when Thel grimaced. "I whished that it was so but apparently the parasite survived. We had massive armed conflict with it 34 years ago but, were able to destroy it before it spread too far. A flaw with the Halo's design is that Flood inside the Halos at the time of the firing were unaffected which, is were the outbreak we encountered came from."

"So you're saying that not only might Grievous fire this thing, he might also unleash these Flood things?" said Obi-Wan

"It's a possibility," replied Rtas "Which is why we need to get down there ASAP."

"That's gonna be a little hard," said Vadmare. "It looks like the CIS have set up massive artillery pieces all over the ring. From the looks of it these things could take out a Phantom in one shot."

"So what do we do?" asked Anakin in a frustrated voice.

Nobody said anything for a few seconds when Aaron said "We jump feet first into Hell,"

Thel, Rtas, and Vadmare nodded their heads in approval, Ramore said "Fine," in an interested tone, Ahsoka said "Oh right I forgot about that, and Anakin and Obi-Wan looked thoroughly confused. "Master," said Ahsoka turning to Obi-Wan and grinning "You are not gonna like this."

General Grievous stormed angrily through the makeshift base that he was using on the Halo. "They let me escape and those sniveling slime balls followed me here." He roared at no one in particular. There was no reply except for a song that was coming out of one of the main computers _"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never turn around and hurt you."_ "Will you turn that garbage off?!" Grievous shouted at the droids

"We working on it sir," said one of the droids timidly "But we're having trouble removing the virus from the system.

"Well you managed to get it out of the other computers, why can't you get it out of this one?" Grievous asked furiously. Before the droids could answer a Skakoan entered the room telling Grievous that there was something he needed to see. Grievous gave an angry snarl as he left the room.

"Whew I'm glad he's gone," said one of the droids. "I'm glad that that happened I really like this song and I don't want to delete it."

"What is it?" Grievous asked the Skakoan that had pulled him aside.

"The ship that followed you here has launched seven projectiles towards the ring's surface. According to analysis the projectiles contain life forms and appear to be some form of escape pod. The pods are moving too quickly for our defenses to get a lock on them. I suggest that we…" but his sentence was cut off as Grievous smashed one of the terminals in front of himself, while roaring in rage.

Aaron gritted his teeth as his HEV pod descended towards the surface of the Halo. He, Ramore, Ahsoka, Thel, Rtas, Anakin, and Obi-Wan had been deployed to punch a hole in the defenses the CIS had installed on the ring so that drop ships could land. "Ok!" he shouted into his com "Deploy your flaps now!" Through the glass of his pod he saw the flaps of the other pods deploy as he deployed him own. The descent of the pods slowed with the exception of one pod that sped ahead of the others. "Who didn't deploy their flaps!?" he shouted

"Who do you think?" Ahsoka responded in an exasperated tone. "Skyguy deploy your flaps now!" she shouted. Anakin ignored her and continued to speed towards the surface.

"I'm not picking up the pieces of you Skywalker," said Aaron angrily "DEPLOY YOUR FUCKING FLAPS!"

The flaps of Anakin's pod deployed as his voice crackled over the com "Alright, alright geez." Anakin's pod was the first to hit the surface with the others landing around ten seconds later. Aaron opened his and stepped out to see the other occupants were doing the same thing. They appeared to be in a forest that would provide a good deal of cover. Obi-Wan was looking rather green with Ahsoka asking him what was wrong. Obi-Wan replied by running to a nearby creek and vomiting in it. **(A/N Obi-Wan hates flying I'd imagine he'd hate doing a free fall from high orbit even more)**

Anakin's pod was easy to identify as it had sunk a couple of feet into the ground. Ramore was pulling the pod out of the ground so that Anakin could actually get out. "Anakin what in the name of the force were you thinking?" Obi-Wan said walking over to Anakin's pod. "Aaron told you to deploy your flaps and he knows a lot more about what he was doing than you did."

"Master relax what's the worse that could have happened?" said Anakin in a relaxed tone.

"You were in a freefall from high orbit and you decided to put off slowing your fall." said Aaron angrily. "Even a few seconds in a situation like that can make a big difference. As a matter of fact if you had put it off for two more seconds I'd be willing to bet that you wouldn't be here to talk about it. Why the Hell did you even do that in the first place?"

Anakin shrugged and said "I thought that it would be exciting," **(A/N I don't think that it would be unlike Anakin to do something like that and then act like this but if you think I'm off character please contact me you may be right) **

"Master," said Ahsoka "I've done some things that can be called immature but, none of them come close to what you just did."

"Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this?" Anakin said in self defense

"Because," said Thel in a dangerous voice that grew with every word "We came here in order to eliminate two very real, very dangerous threats that threaten the lives billions and yet you go around treating the whole thing LIKE IT'S A FORESAKEN GAME!" he finished with a bellow.

Anakin looked like Thel had just punched him. "Uh guys?" said Ramore. "We're supposed to be taking out those AA turrets. We can tell Anakin what an idiot he is later." The majority of the group nodded and began to move towards the AA turrets with the exception of Anakin who merely stood still. After a few seconds he shook his head and followed the rest of the group.

Aaron pulled his sniper rifle off of his back as he moved through the trees. They were starting to thin and he could guess that soon they would soon exit the forest and would be in range of the AA guns. He and the rest of the group slowed and stopped. "Here's the plan," said Thel. "Rtas, Ramore, and myself will sneak up on them and take out as many as we can before we are detected. When we are Aaron will start sniping them, and you three," he pointed to the three Jedi "Will move in at that point to eliminate the remaining droids. Any questions?" No one said anything. "Alright said let's…" but he stopped when he heard weapon fire coming from the AA guns.

Turning around the group saw that the droids around the AA guns were firing at Sentinel Majors who were swarming them. The Sentinels had superior numbers and were overwhelming the droids. A couple of Sentinels had actually began to destroy the AA guns. "Umm," said Ahsoka "Are the droids getting killed by a bunch of random Sentinels?"

"What is a Sentinel?" asked Obi-Wan.

"Mass produced machines that the Forerunners made during their war on the Flood," said Rtas. "Many are still around today due to the fact that the machines that make them are fully automatic. But this is highly unusual Sentinels are usually idle unless the Halo's Monitor gives them an order to attack and, that usually only happens when there is a flood outbreak.

"Well then I'm different from other monitors," said a voice that would sound very familiar to anyone who had known 343 Guilty Spark. As the group raised their weapons and wheeled about to face the newcomer they saw a Forerunner Monitor that looked just like Guilty Spark except that he glowed yellow instead of blue. "I am 49 Unifying Core," said the Monitor "Now, state your business here, are you in league with the CIS?" said Core in a surprisingly threatening tone. "Those people are horrible attempting to use this Instillation for their own personal gain, it's an insult to my makers. Now tell me are you in league with them?!"

"No," said Aaron "We're at war with them the same way you are apparently."

Without saying anything Core turned to face Aaron. "By my makers," he whispered "a Reclaimer. I apologize for my rudeness," said Core much more politely "But I've been having a stressful couple of weeks trying to keep these people from taking over the ring," Core sighed tiredly.

"If you don't mind me asking," said Thel "But I've met two other Monitors and they seemed to be a little, how do I put it, punctual to their programming but, you aren't. Is there any chance that you could explain that?"

"Ah yes," said Core "Well a long time ago, a couple of years before the array was fired there was a Forerunner working on this Instillation. He believed that the Monitors were too mechanical in their thinking and believed that that would cause massive problems during vital situations. **(A/N seriously look at Guilty Spark. Halo fans will know what I'm talking about)** That Forerunner taught me something that cannot be measured, humanity. He removed the protocols from my programming and began to teach me how to express my feelings and to think with my heart and not just my brain. As a result I became more like a freethinking person and I called that Forerunner an appropriate name 'Father'. Apparently my Father was pleased with what he had accomplished with me and it was my understanding that he wanted to travel the other Instillations and repeat his work with the Monitors there when the array was fired and he was killed." Core sighed "Sometimes I still miss him."

"So is there any chance that you can help us?" asked Aaron.

"That depends," said Core "Do you intend on firing this Instillation?"

"Um no," said Ahsoka

"In that case I shall do whatever I can to help," said Core.

"You already started," said Obi-Wan looking at the now singed AA guns.

"Yeah and here's the next thing you can do," said Anakin who was looking up "You can tell us what that is" everyone looked up to see that there was some sort of transparent barrier in the air.

Core responded in an angry voice "Those tainted CIS they managed to hack into some of the systems and activate Instillation 03's shielding. It is a very powerful shield and as long as it is up no one can get on or off this Instillation." All seven members of the landing party gaped at Core taking in this horrible information. The seven of them were trapped on a Halo infested with hundreds of thousands of CIS battle droids.

Action is gonna pick up again next chapter and something new will begin. Anyone who guess the new thing gets a cookie.

Please reveiw


	6. Splitting Up

Chapter 6

Splitting Up

"Core," said Thel looking at the monitor "Is there you could deactivate that shield."

"No," said Core "Ever since the CIS showed up a couple of weeks ago the battles waged all over this Instillation have caused damage to some of the systems cutting me off from them. This includes the shield and the teleportation system. However there may a another way of getting that shield down. The shield is on such a massive scale that several shield generators are needed in order to maintain it. One of said generations is located within 50 miles, if it is destroyed it should punch a hole in the shield.

"Well then looks we know where we are going," said Anakin.

"We have another priority," said Core " ever since the CIS discovered this Instillation a couple of weeks ago, they have been hacking terminals all over the it in order to acquire information about it and related topics. This is how they learned what they know about the Instillations, mainly what they do and about the Flood. But they have yet to learn a very important fact that is necessary in order to fire the Instillation."

"The Activation Index? asked Thel.

"Right in one," said Core grimly. "It is only a matter of time before they find out about it so it would probably be for the best if we move it before they discover it's existence."

"What about the Flood?" asked Rtas.

"There are no longer any Flood on this Instillation." Core replied. "I had them all destroyed many millennia ago. They were the reason for the death of my makers and father they were too dangerous to be kept alive. Now then about the Index, there is an undamaged teleporting beacon that will put us within a reasonable distance of the Library. We should act quickly and move it to a better hiding place."

"We should split up," said Obi-Wan. "Core you take Aaron, Ramore, and Ahsoka with you go get this Index and the rest of us will take down the shield generator."

"An excellent suggestion." said Core The shield generator is in the opposite direction of the sun. Now for now I bid you a farewell," and with that he teleported his party away, as Thel contacted the _Glorious Victory_ to inform them of the situation.

Core, Aaron, Ramore, and Ahsoka stepped out of a teleporting array onto an open plain with clumps of trees here and there. A massive building could be seen in the distance. "According to my calculations," said Core "Most likely we will not reach it before night and we will have to stop and make camp.

Ahsoka wasn't quite sure how she felt about this but when Aaron said "That's no big deal," she decided to keep any complaints to herself. "It's weird," she thought "Whenever I'm around Aaron I just can't seem to get impatient or frustrated with anyone or anything, outside of a combat zone of course. And for some reason whenever I'm around him I feel like my stomach is doing a somersault and I feel a little hot." Ahsoka was trying not to think about it but she had thought of an explanation as why to she was feeling this way and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

The group began making their way towards the Library. They walked for many hours in which they pasted the time by listening to Ramore's tales of the Human-Covenant War. Aaron found himself glancing at Ahsoka who was smiling at Ramore's current story. Aaron felt like his insides had turned to liquid and he turned his attention back to the front again. He had been feeling like that pretty much any time Ahsoka had made eye contact with him recently. In addition to that there was something about her that just made any situation a lot more bearable and joyous. An explanation for this was dancing on the edges of his mind. "Aaron." he thought to himself in an exasperated voice "What have you gotten yourself into?"

A few minutes after Aaron had had these thoughts they spotted a CIS patrol and stopped hiding in a clump of trees. "Should we engage or should we let them pass?" asked Ramore looking at Core.

Core positioned himself so that he was peered out of the trees and at the patrol. "They're heading in the direction of the Library," he said. "We can't risk letting them discover it, we should eliminate that patrol." The patrol was light mainly consisting of a dozen battle droids. The real muscle of the patrol were the two AAT tanks that were accompanying it. Aaron made a gesture to Ramore, who activated his Active Camouflage and sprinted towards the patrol.

"When he makes his move get ready to strike," Aaron whispered to Ahsoka, and Core who nodded. Ramore sprinted towards the back of one of the tanks. He jumped onto the back of one of the tanks and slammed a plasma grenade in as hard as he could and then leaped off as the tank exploded. Ahsoka charged forward, activating her lightsaber and deflecting several shots that came at her. Aaron provided sniper fire while Core fired several shots from his beam weapon. Ahsoka had reached the droids and was easily dispatching them, while Ramore sprinted towards the remaining tank. Even as Ahsoka dispatched the last droid and Ramore jumped on the last tank Aaron saw the tank aiming it's main gun at Ahsoka.

"Ahsoka!" he shouted but it was unnecessary for she had seen it too. She jumped just in the nick of time but, while she was unharmed, the tank had hit the ground were she had been a second ago which sent her flying, right into Aaron. Ramore slammed another plasma grenade into the second tank jumping off as it was destroyed. As he landed he looked in the direction of Aaron and Ahsoka, and tried very hard not to laugh. When Ahsoka had slammed into Aaron she had knocked off his helmet and…, let's just say they were in a rather compromising position. While he found this amusing he found it even more touching for both of them were blushing generously.

In an embarrassed manner Ahsoka got off Aaron brushing herself off, while Aaron got up and put his helmet back on. "Umm shouldn't be going?" they both said.

"Uh yeah," said Ramore and the group once again made their way to the library.

"Ok just relax and think," Ahsoka thought to herself. "It doesn't mean that there is anything going on just because I landed on him like that. Same goes for me looking into those gorgeous green eyes and wanting to kiss him yeah th-wait? WHAT!" Ahsoka was dismayed at the thoughts that ran through her head. "Oh boy," she thought "I've really done it this time."

Aaron was glad that he had his helmet on again because he was still blushing like mad. "Alright," he thought "Ahsoka just blown right on top of me and our faces ended up a couple of inches away from each other. Not only did I like having her on me but I could have looked into those beautiful blue eyes she has for hours. Nice going Aaron, why don't you just go and fire the Halo while you're at it?"

They walked for hours until it started to get dark. Deciding that it would be unwise to continue in the dark the small group decided to make camp for the night. Using his energy sword Ramore cut down a couple of trees to make a fire. As they sat around the fire Ramore told a couple of more stories, mainly based around the legendary soldier John-117. Unknown to everyone else Ramore was concocting a plan while he told stories.

Deciding to put his plan into action Ramore waited until Aaron and Ahsoka weren't looking at him. When they were talking to Core, Ramore grabbed the log, that he had cut down to chop up for fire fuel, and threw so far that it landed just out of sight and earshot. "We're running low on fuel," Ramore said to the other three "Core come with me and help me get some more." Core was a little confused but followed Ramore away from the campsite.

"Ok," said Ramore when they were at a fair distance from the campsite "You probably guessed that I didn't come out here to get firewood. I dragged you out here so we could give those two some alone time."

"Ah," said Core "That would explain a lot. You are interested in seeing those two developing a romantic relationship also?"

"Yeah," said Ramore "You are too?"

"Why yes," said Core "I am fascinated by romantic relationships. It became very clear that those two were interested in each other earlier today due to the massive amount of hormone reactions they had from they were in that…position. Well I guess we just wait here for awhile." Ramore nodded.

It took Aaron a couple of seconds to realize that he was alone at the fire with Ahsoka. "Talk to her," a small voice in his head said. Getting up he walked around to where she was sitting and sat down next to her.

"Oh geez," thought Ahsoka as Aaron sat down next to her. He had removed his helmet when they had made camp so she was able to get a good look at his face. He was young, barely older than she was and had brown hair that stopped around his forehead. There was silence between them for a few seconds before Aaron spoke. "My father was an ODST too that man taught me everything that I know. He was my adoptive father, not my real father and he was single so it was just the two of us in the house and he got around to a lot of teaching. "And you know what one of the most important things that he taught me was?" Ahsoka shook her head. "Life is too short to live in fear you need to take chances if you ever want to reach true happiness." **(A/N My Dad says something like this but a swapped things around a little bit)**

Aaron was surprised on how easy it was to talk to Ahsoka about these things that he held near and dear to himself. "We're in the middle of a war, either of us could be killed at any time. So that's why I think we need to talk now while we're both alive and healthy," he continued. Ahsoka's stomach did a back flip. "Talk does he mean about what happened earlier today?" she wondered. "What I mean is that…I…we," said Aaron who was losing his composure at an alarming rate. Deciding that it was best to be blunt at this point he simply closed his eyes and said "I believe that I have began to develop feelings for you. In other words I think I love you."

Ahsoka had had a feeling that the conversation was going to be about this topic but what Aaron had just said completely caught her off guard. She realized something else about what he had just said, those were some of the most beautiful words that she had heard in her entire life. She said something that Aaron thought sounded like "I love you too." The next thing that Aaron's brain registered was the Ahsoka had thrown herself at him planting her lips on his kissing him passionately. Aaron couldn't remember when he had started doing it but he was aware that he was kissing her back.

It's been awhile since I wrote a fluff scene. Please tell me what you think and somebody please write a review I've only gotten six so far. (Although I have gotten a lot of favorite stories and subscriptions for this story which a greatly appreciate and to all of those who have done so I thank you from the bottom of my heart.) enjoy

p.s. In real life I would not recommend saying I love you to the first girl/boy that you start to have feelings for odds are it will end badly.


	7. The Library

Chapter 7

The Library

You know I've been thinking with Christmas around the corner maybe I should write a Christmas oneshot about the characters in this story. Please tell me in your reviews what you think of this idea and enjoy the chapter.

FYI no matter what you say I'm writing it I just want your oppinion

"So this is the Library," said Aaron, looking up the massive building before them. Aaron and Ahsoka had fallen asleep in a position that could be described as comfortable and let's leave it at that. Ramore and Core had crept back into camp long after they had drifted off to sleep and the eventually dozed off too. **(A/N well Core put himself to sleep the same way you put a computer to sleep but still very similar)** When they woke up the next morning and set out again, Aaron and Ahsoka had said nothing to each other. Ramore had a pretty good idea the reason that they were doing this was that he and Core were in ear shot. Before too long they had reached the library and they couldn't help but stand back to admire the architecture.

"You guys go on ahead," said Ramore "I'll stay behind to see if any CIS forces come around." Aaron, Ahsoka, and Core nodded as they charged into the building. Ramore took his carbine off of his back and moved in front of the entrance his eyes scanning the area.

"Ok this is without a doubt a once in a lifetime experience." said Ahsoka as she and the others walked through the Library. **(A/N I never played the first halo game so my information on the Library may be rather inaccurate.)** The Forerunner architecture simply took her breath away. The entire building was beautifully and it was hard to believe that this was part of a weapon of mass destruction.

"It's a shame that we're in the middle of a war here otherwise we could really kick back and enjoy this." said Aaron. Ahsoka nodded as they continued to walk through the library making their way towards the top.

After several minutes of walking and climbing through the Library they found themselves in a large circular room with a pit in the middle. Floating directly above the center of was a small container with the tip of a glowing object. "That is it," said Core "The Activation Index. You two must remove it for I am unable to. My makers installed that into the containment unit in case I was ever captured by the Flood. Seriously these limitations are staring to piss me off." Forcing herself not to giggle Ahsoka merely nodded.

Aaron walked forward towards the pit and reached down into the pit. He had heard that years ago on Instillation 04 the legendary soldier Master Chief had been able to walk over the pit to the Index. When his hand was able to move downward without being stopped it was obvious that he would not be able to do that here. Pulling a cable from a nearby pillar he used to prevent himself from falling into to pit as he attempted to grab the index. He made several lunges towards the Index but every time he came up short. He was about to make a particularly strong lunge when the contain opened on it's own accord and the Index floated out and into his hand. Turning to face Ahsoka he saw that her hands were outstretched and she had had levitated the Index into his hands using the Force. "I…" she said weekly choking on her words. Taking a deep breath she said much more strongly "I didn't want to see you get hurt."

Aaron just smiled as he climbed out of the pit and walked over to her. Taking off his helmet with his free hand he kissed her on the check. Ahsoka blushed, touching the spot were his lips had just been. Putting his helmet back on Aaron took a small chip out of the back. This chip was capable of storing as complex as Smart A.I.s but since ODSTs were rarely equipped with them they were mainly used for data storage. Aaron held the Index close to the chip and the Index was transferred into the chip. Aaron then replaced the chip in the back of his helmet. "There we go one Activation Index to go, now what?"

Before either Core or Ahsoka could answer Ramore's voice crackled over the com. "Um guys I think that Grievous what the Index is and where it is because I see an enormous amount of droids heading here. You might wana get out, you know, RIGHT NOW." They did not to be told twice as they dashed out of the Library much faster then they had come in.

"Easily hundreds maybe even thousands," Ramore thought to himself as he looked through the scope of his carbine at the oncoming forces. They were still around 45 minutes out and from the looks of things they were unaware that their small team was here yet. "You get it?" Ramore muttered as he heard footsteps behind him announcing the return of the others.

"Yeah," said Ahsoka, a barely noticeable note of panic in her voice "How many are there?"

"If we're lucky around eight hundred." said Ramore "If we're not two grand."

"Against the four of us? No thanks I'll pass," said Aaron. He turned to face Core saying "Core we really could use an escape route."

"All ready on it," said Core, and with a flash of light all four of them were blinded by a flash of bright light. When sight returned to his eyes Aaron found that wherever he was now it was nighttime. He had natural night vision thanks to his genetic augmentation so he had no problem seeing. "I thought it would be a good idea to get as far away from the Library as possible so I teleported us to the opposite side of the ring. The CIS hasn't been seen in this area during their entire invasion so safe bet that they won't find us here."

Aaron looked up at they sky and saw a shimmer. He frowned, the shield was still up. "The shield is still up," he said "What are the others up to?"

Ahsoka pulled out a holographic projector and activated it, causing a holographic image of Obi-Wan Kenobi to appear. "Master," she said "We have the Index and we were able to get to a safe area. How are things on your end?"

"We're almost at the shield generator we should be there in around ten minutes," said Obi-Wan I'll contact you when we're done there, until then stay where you are."

"Yes master," said Ahsoka who deactivated her holographic projector and turned to face the others. "I guess we're sticking around here for awhile." The others nodded in agreement.

Yeah sorry kinda short I wanted to stop it there.

Question should I put Master Chief in this story Yes or No? Please PM with your answer or put it in a review I will decide that way. This poll will not be open for very long. However if I get less than five votes I will throw all of them out of the window and make up my own mind about it. Please review.

So overall I have two questions

1. Should I write a Christmas one-shot

2. Should I put in Cheif


	8. An Interesting Development

Chapter 8

An Interesting Development

Obi-Wan deactivated his holographic projector and turned to face the others. "Good news," he said "They got the Activation Index," They were on a small hill near the shield generator within a minute away. Rtas was looking through the scope of a beam rifle sizing up their opposition.

"Large numbers of those pitiful droids," he said "And ten of those more formidable ones, what do you call them? Magna Guards. We should approach carefully."

"Here's the plan," said Thel "Rtas you stay here and provide sniper cover. I'm going to use my active camouflage to sneak around behind and Obi-Wan and Skywalker you two act as a diversion by attacking from the…where's Skywalker?"

"I'm gonna take a wild guess," said Rtas "Attacking them directly from the front. Yup," he said as he spotted Anakin charging the droids through his scope.

"You know," Thel growled as he activate his camouflage "If that wasn't part of the plan I'd probably strangle him." Obi-Wan sighed as he ran to join Anakin.

"Why do I get the feeling that this kid is going to be the end of us all?" said Rtas as he lined up and took a shot.

"That's weird," said Aaron. He and the others were still waiting for the green light from Obi-Wan. "My comms are picking up a signal."

"What kind of signal?" asked Ramore.

"Hmmmm, that can't be right. It looks like it's a UNSC distress signal. It's very weak it just says CTN 0452-9. It must be some sort of serial number."

"Where's it coming from?" asked Ahsoka.

"Not very far can't be more than a mile or two," said Aaron turning to face Core. "Did anything impact on this ring that might be giving off a distress signal?"

"Well," said Core "Scanners did indicate a large metallic object impacting here around a week ago but I was busy fighting the CIS so I ignored it."

"Well let's go check it out." said Aaron as they began to walk in the direction of the signal."

Thel quietly approached the shield generator with several plasma grenades in hand. Everything was going according to plan, Anakin and Obi-Wan were providing an excelling diversion. They mainly stood at a distance and deflected blaster bolts but they had to get fancy every once in awhile when a Magna guard charged them. As the neared the base of the, gigantic, 50 foot tall shield generator Thel saw that five droids had been left behind to guard it. Smiling Thel produced a plasma rifle and was able to spray down four before they could return fire. The fifth one was able to get out a couple of shots but Thel's energy shields only dropped to 60% as he eliminated the last droid. Holstering his rifle he went to work planting the plasma grenades.

"Well," said Aaron "That's probably were the signal came from. "They were looking at what appeared to be the wreckage of a UNSC ship. "Ramore, Core," said Aaron "Walk around and see if you can find anything painted on the hull to give us and idea of what the ship's name is while Ahsoka and I check the inside," Ramore nodded as the group divided.

"So this is one of your ships?" asked Ahsoka as she and Aaron walked through the ruins of this ship.

"Well it used to be," said Aaron "But something feels odd," he said looking around at the rubble. "This technology is way out of date. Meaning that this ship must have been drifting for years before it crashed on this ring." They continued walking until the reached a large and mainly intact room. "This looks like the cryo-stasis chamber," said Aaron "Check to see if anyone if anyone is still in one of the pods." New Allied Species ships were so fast that cryo-stasis was no longer needed but he was still familiar with the concept. He and Ahsoka began walking around examining the pods.

Ahsoka was distracted by a terminal that had a button flashing on it. "What to you supposed this is," she asked Aaron pointing at the flashing button. Aaron shrugged and continued to check the pods. Looking at the button again Ahsoka thought "What the heck this is an old destroyed warship everything dangerous is probably disabled," and pushed the button

"Hard to believe that we were able to find the wreckage of a human ship on a ring we didn't even know the location of," said Ramore to Core, who nodded as if he had a point. He and Core were walking around the ship to see if they could find any type of marking that could help identify the ship. "Wait a minute, here we go," said Ramore as he found a couple of words written on some of the hull. As he read them he felt his mouth open in shock and heard himself say "You gotta be kidding me."

Thel watched with a look of satisfaction as the plasma grenades detonated causing the generator to collapse. Glancing quickly at the fight he saw that most of the droids had been eliminated. He then looked up and saw, with a pang of panic, that the shield collapsed or even weakened. Thel threw back his head and gave a roar of rage that drove fear into the few surviving droids.

"What? Who are you?" said a female voice. "Ok," thought Ahsoka "I wasn't expecting a small hologram of a woman to show up when I pushed that button,"

"My name is Ahsoka Tano," said Ahsoka "We were examining the wreckage of this ship for survivors and I guess I activated you by mistake."

"Who's we?" asked the woman.

"Did you find someone Ahsoka?" Aaron asked as he approached her. Ahsoka nodded and pointed at the holographic woman. "A Smart A.I?" said Aaron.

"Oh thank God an ODST," said the woman "I'm UNSC Artificial Intelligence Cortana." **(A/N yeah you read right)**

"Cortana?" said Aaron aren't you the A.I that was assigned to…"

"Oh damn he's still in the cryo-pod," said Cortana "Trooper I need you to get that Cryo-pod open," as she said this she pointed to a pod that was thoroughly fogged up.

Aaron approached the pod and pushed a button next to it that caused it to open mist flowing out of it. As the mist cleared and Aaron saw the occupant four words escaped his mouth. "Didn't see that coming."

Thel was fuming as he glared up at the sky which was still shimmering due to the shield. "Well," he said barely congaing his anger "Now what?"

"Well," said Obi-Wan "We should probably regroup with the others."

Nodding Thel activated his com unit. "Aaron you there?" he said. "Bad news taking out the generator wasn't enough to make a gap in the shield. Wait where are you? Slow down I can't understand what you're saying. YOU WHAT?!" He's still alive after all this time? Well this oughta even things up. You'll be here soon?" Great." Deactivating his com link Thel turned to the others. "They managed to salvage some vehicles and they'll be here in about half an hour. Core is going to teleport them nearby and then they'll be able to cover the rest in the vehicles."

"Arbiter," said Rtas "What were you talking about. Who's still alive?"

"Oh you'll see," said Thel. The half an hour until the others arrived was rather slow and dragged out. Rtas kept watch with his beam rifle but clearly the CIS were making no attempt to take their position. Finally three Warthogs came into view driving towards them. "There they are," said Thel "It looks like there was still some Warthogs on the Forward Unto Dawn."

"The Dawn?" said Rtas. "Arbiter they didn't find HIM? Did they?" Thel didn't say anything but merely smiled as they Warthogs approached. When they finally reached them they could see the passengers. Aaron was driving one with Ahsoka in shotgun while Ramore drive the second one with Core floating next to him. The third was driven by a figure who was easily seven feet tall and wore green armor that covered his whole body. As they exited the Warthogs the armored figure walked forward extending his hand and saying "Greetings I am John-117"

CHIEF LIVES! The poll was a landslide 5 yes 0 no. I ending it there because I wanted to stop it the moment Chief's name was mentioned. Well hope you liked it please review.


	9. Advancing

Chapter 9

Advancing

Slightly depressing turn here don't worry it doesn't last too long

In other words sorry about the long update time you could say that I took the holidays off.

Aaron's head was still buzzing as he drove the Warthog that had been salvaged from the _Forward Unto Dawn _with Ramore on the turret and Ahsoka in shotgun. Chief was driving another one of the Warthogs with Thel on the gun and Obi-Wan in shotgun. Rtas was driving the last one with Anakin in shotgun. Rtas had refused point blank to drive a Warthog with Skywalker on the gun and this was supported by the fact that Anakin wasn't trained in using firearms. To make up for this Core was floating along their Warthog ready to provide support. Aaron had to admit with everything that was going on, and what they were going to do he was tensed, and a little scared.

2 Hours earlier.

"So all in all," said Cortana "There is an organization called the CIS with millions of droids positioned on this ring which can be fired and we have less then a dozen people to fight them with?"

"Pretty much," said Aaron as he gazed at the horizon with his sniper rifle looking for droids.

"Just another day at the office then," said Chief in his low voice.

"Well then now that we have all of the explanations done I have a plan to propose," said Core. "The shield was apparently stronger than I anticipated as it was ever used before so apparently it was able to sustain itself after the loss of one of its generators. I however have thought of a solution. The main CIS HQ seems to be stationed at the firing room for the ring. If we strike their we can take out their leaders, and we should be able to deactivate the shield from there."

"The firing room?" said Aaron. "So in other words we're heading into the belly of the beast. But I guess we really don't have a choice. Speaking of which I need you guys to do me a favor."

"And that might be?" asked Anakin coldly. He and Aaron still weren't on very good speaking terms.

"If it looks like I'm about to be captured," said Aaron in an emotionless voice, as he determinedly looked through his scope and forcing himself not to look at anyone especially Ahsoka "I want you to kill me." His gaze was still focused through the scope but judging by the noises that eliminated from behind him he was able to guess the reaction of the others which turned out to be fairly accurate. Ahsoka barely contained a shriek which she quickly disguised as a cough, Anakin's eyes Ramore gave a reluctant nod, Core gazed at the ground sadly, while Chief, Thel, and Rtas just looked at him quietly.

"Why?" said all three Jedi simultaneously.

"Because," said Thel grimly "Only humans from our galaxy can activate the Halos. If he is captured they will torture him and try to force him to fire the rings for them."

This time Ahsoka was unable to contain her gasp as Anikan and Obi-Wan recoiled in shock. Ahsoka looking worryingly at Aaron direction who was still determinedly looking through his scope at the horizon. Ahsoka hadn't realized up until now that the sniper rifle was trembling as was his hands. "He's terrified," Ahsoka though as she looked at him. And unfortunately she had hit the nail right on the head.

Present

"A little scared who the fuck am I kidding? I'm scared shitless," Aaron thought as he attempted to keep the Warthog steady. This was proving to be a little difficult at the moment as his arms were still shaking from anxiety and it was taking all of his concentration to keep to steering wheel from jerking.

"Aaron," said Ahsoka in a deeply concerned voice. Aaron glanced at her out of the corner of his de-polarized helemet. They had not spoken for the past two hours. Aaron had maintained a steely silence to everyone ever since he had made his request and Ahsoka had been unsure off how to approach him. "You scared?" she asked quietly.

"Petrified," he muttered barely looking at her.

"I understand." she whispered "These people want you to commit genocide and then you're afraid of them torturing and killing you."

"Not quite right," said Aaron grimly "I'm more scared of them making me fire the ring and then letting me live with it. If I mess up and they get their hands on me then the blood of trillions will be on my hands." Ahsoka was shocked at this she had never really thought of it that way. "So what about you? You gonna tell me that you aren't scared? Because I'll be honest with you I've been scared ever since the shield went up it's just gotten worse with this new offensive."

Ahsoka lowered her head a little it was appeared to be shame. "Jedi aren't supposed to feel fear," she said.

"Now is that really a wise move?" asked Ramore speaking for the first time in two hours.

"What do you mean," asked Ahsoka clearly confused.

"Fear sometimes can be your best friend. It stimulates your senses and you fight far superiorly than you did in your calm state as well as be the voice of reason. But at the same time you need to be careful that it doesn't overwhelm you otherwise you panic and panic is your worse enemy. A life without fear is usually not a very long one. I have seen countless of my brothers fall due to the fact that they underestimated the situation that they were in and paid dearly for in all Ahsoka while you may not always like it fear may just save you one-day but while it can be useful be wary that it does not consume you otherwise it may cost you your life." **(A/N does anyone think that I'm pulling out too many philosophical moments? Or are these moments keeping the story flowing nicely? Please answer this question in your review**)

Aaron smiled. Admittedly it had only been a couple of hours since he had last done so, but it felt like it had been days. "Thanks guys," he said as returned his attention back to driving "That does help calm my nerves a bit."

"Anytime old friend," said Ramore as he too permitted himself a grin. Ahsoka didn't say anything but reached for one of Aaron's hands and gave it a small squeeze. Aaron took it off of the wheel and returned the favor before turning back to driving trying to ignore the fact that his heart seemed to be doing the Tango.

"We're coming up on the control room," Core shouted unexpectedly we'll be there in about five minutes."

Ahsoka's mussels tensed and she reached for her lightsaber making sure that it was there. Looking out in front of her she could have sworn that she saw a weird shimmer. "Can anyone else she that?" asked Ahsoka.

"See what?" asked Aaron.

Before Ahsoka could answer something unseen slammed into the Warthog sending it flying. All three passengers hung on to what they could for dear life as the vehicle slammed into the ground upside-down. Ramore gave a groan as he released his grip of the turret, falling the three inch drop between him and the ground. "Everyone alright?" he asked as he gazed at the sky. He heard two muffled groans of yes as he stood up, carbine in hand. He raised the carbine at looked through the scope trying to identify what had just hit them. What he saw made him tremble with rage. A Brute armed with a gravity hammer was charging straight at them shouting a war cry. Roaring with rage Ramore fired blast after blast from his carbine until the clip ejected. The Brute attempted to keep charging but it's shields had collapsed under the strain of the plasma bolts and it had taken several direct hits. Eventually the Brute collapsed badly wounded but still alive.

Still fuming Ramore knelt down to help up Aaron and Ahsoka, who had managed to remove themselves from under the Warthog. "Isn't that a Jiralhanae? I thought they were in an alliance with you guys."

"They are," said Ramore angrily slapping a fresh clip in his carbine "Which is why I'm very interested to find out why that one attacked us, let alone what he was doing on this forsaken ring in the first place." Ramore strode towards the Brute with murder in his eyes with Aaron and Ahsoka right behind him. It was clear that Ramore had done quite a number on him, as his face and half of his body were covered in burns. He clearly didn't have much time left. "Alright you're going to answer a couple of questions." said Ramore in a deadly voice. "First off what are you doing here and why did you attack us?"

The Brute spat at Ramore you an answer. "You want to answer his questions," said Ahsoka waving her hand gently.

"I want to answer his questions," the Brute said hypnotically. "I attacked you because you threatened to kill my leader also I suspected you had the sacred icon. As for what I'm going here I am helping to start the Great Journey and honor your kind," he gestured at Ramore "lost long ago."

"Your leader who is he?" asked Ramore sounding like he didn't want to know.

The Brute grinned at this point as he croaked out "The last of his kind The Prophet of Salvation." The Brute looked like he was about to continue before he began to gurgle and then slumped, dead. Ramore could barely hear the sound of approaching Warthogs as he looked at Aaron horror covering his face.

hope you liked that please reveiw


	10. Revelations

Chapter 10

Revelations

The landing party stood, or in Core's case floated, around the corpse of the Brute. Ramore had just finished explaining what had happened to everyone and now there was silence as the corpse of the Brute had observed. Several silent minutes had passed before Thel finally broke the silence. "It all makes sense."

"What do you mean?" asked Obi-Wan.

"We were so busy trying to stop the CIS from using this ring that we never bothered to even wonder how they knew it even existed in the first place. This explains it. My guess is that one of the Prophets managed to escape the destruction of High Charity with loyal Brute followers. He then went looking for allies because he probably didn't have the numbers necessary to take over one of the rings, and acquire a Human. So he fled searching the endless reaches of space until he found the CIS. He then told them about Halo so that they would help him take it over so that they can start his beloved Great Journey. The CIS most likely see the Halos for what they are and intend to use them as a weapon to help them win this war, and with Grievous here after we defeated him on Naboo he'll most likely want to fire it to permanently cripple the Allied Species."

"And would that work?" asked Anikan.

Thel sighed before saying "Jugging by the distance of the ring from our colonized areas I'm guessing that if this ring were to fire our population would be cut in half, so yes it would work."

"Then we can't exactly sit around waiting can we?" said John speaking for the first time in awhile as he entered the driver's seat of one of the Warthogs. Ramore nodded as he flipped his Warthog back over. It was rather beaten up but it would still work without any major problems. Everyone clambered back into their appropriate Warthogs and continued towards the firing room.

To say that Grievous's temper made the fires of Hell pale in comparison was an understatement. "They're on their way!" he shouted to two figures in the shadows "If they get here it could mean the end of everything we've worked here for!"

"It is of little concern," said one of the figures removing himself from the shadows to reveal himself. He was sitting in a gravity throne and wore a cloak much like Truth's except that it was pure white. The Prophet of Salvation last of his kind. "My honor guard may be small in numbers but they will be more than enough to take them. "Gargunus!" The second figure stepped out of the shadows and revealed himself to be a Brute chieftain in bright gold chieftain armor, and wielding a larger than normal gravity hammer, The Fist of Rukt. "You now wield the hammer of your father," said Salvation to Gargunus "Now take what numbers you may need and defeat those who would dare to desecrate this holy place."

"As you wish holy Prophet," said Gargunus, who bowing in respect before walking out of the room. As he walked through the hallways to the entrance he barked orders and other brutes began to follow him. By the time he reached the entrance he had two dozen strong behind him. He issued another and the six Stalker Brutes **(A/N talk about an inappropriate name)** activated their active camo and ran forward to take up ambush positions. He couldn't help but feel powerful as the other Brutes he had took up defensive positions. He couldn't really blame himself, the entrance to the firing room was exactly the same to the one on Instillation 04 **(A/N the instillation in Halo 3) **except grass covered the ground instead of snow. It felt incredibly empowering to be standing so far up was so many troops at his disposal. As he saw the Warthogs approached he licked his lips, eager for the meal that he would soon feast on.

"Here we are," said Core as the warthogs approached the ramp that led up to the entrance.

"Bring back any memories Chief?" asked Cortana in a voice that suggested she already knew the answer. John nodded quietly. Due to the fact that the ramps were too narrow for Warthogs, the approaching group left them at the base as they began to climb upwards. To their surprise they met no resistance as the climb skywards. They soon reached the top to find that the door was sealed.

"Core," said Aaron "Would you do the honors?" The floating sphere nodded and shot a light blue bean at the door several times. Early everyone in the group managed a smile as the door began to open. This was short lived as an ENORMAS brute charged forward swinging a MASSIVE gravity hammer. The shockwave from the strike sent Aaron, Ramore, and Rtas flying. The Chieftain gave a roar and charged through the remaining six knocking Obi-wan and Thel aside as he jumped off of the cliff determined to catch his prey.

Obi-Wan and Thel had barely gotten to their feet when three Stalker Brutes had decloaked and opened fire on the group. Fortunately they had underestimated the distance between themselves and the group and the Maulers that they were using barley did any damage to their targets, who happened to be John and Thel. John threw a well placed plasma grenade that eliminated two of the Stalkers while Thel mowed down the third with his plasma rifle. But no sooner had the third Stalker fell than a dozen and a half Brutes sprang from hiding positions firing various weapons. The six who were still on the cliff fled to the entrance the only safe heaven available. Thel, Chief, and Core went in first while the three Jedi spun their lightsabers in a blur deflecting the various projectiles, until they had reached a safe distance, when they also ran.

Ramore, Aaron and Rtas all hit the ground with a dull thud. Aaron had a feeling that if it weren't for his genetic augmentation quite a couple of his bones would be broken right about now. All three of them got up wearily when they heard a loud smash and looked in front of them drawing their firearms. The golden armored chieftain had jumped off of the cliff to pursue them. Now that he was still the three of them could see that the Chieftain seemed to be glowing. "No," said Rtas looking at the hammer in the Brute's hands "Is that the Fist of Rukt?"

"The very same," said the Chieftain grinning sadistically. "I am Gargunus son of Tartarus, Chieftain of the Jiralhanae, guardian of the Prophet of Salvation, and the maker of your doom!" and on the he charging forward swinging his hammer with animal like ferocity. The three barely jumped out of the way in time to dodge the hammer as it came crashing down. Ramore had so hastily thrown himself out of the way that he had fumbled his carbine and dropped it. Hearing a sound of crunching metal Ramore knew that he wasn't using that rifle again anytime soon. He landed and drew his energy swords taking up a fighting stance facing Gargunus.

Aaron desperately fired his SMGs at Gargunus which had absolutely no effect as the bullets just bounced off of his shields. Aaron reloaded his SMGs and was about to fire again when extreme pain shot through his right leg. The remaining three Brute Stalkers had snuck up on him and they had simultaneously fired on him. The first two shots had collapses his shields and the third had hit his leg scattering pellets throughout the entire limb. Aaron fell over from the pain, but as he fell he was able to line up is SMGs and was able to turn one of the Stalkers into Swiss cheese. Rtas lined up one of the Stalkers with his beam rifle and squeezed off a shot that when directly in-between the eyes. He turned to face the last Stalker who was prepping a spike grenade instead of the usually flame ones sued by Stalkers. Rtas burned a hole in the Stalker's head but not before it had thrown the grenade which landed a foot away from Rtas before going off. Rtas roared in pain as he dropped his beam rifle, for a spike had pierced his right hand. Grimacing Rtas tensed his mussels and pulled the spike out. Purple blood now gushed from the open wound as Rtas attempted to staunch it.

Gargunus was advancing mercilessly on Ramore swing his hammer in unpredictable patterns. Ramore dodged them with amazing speed and even threw a few blows of his own. However his blades merely bounded off of Gargunus's shields not even putting a dent in them. Ramore was slowing but surely being overcome by a sense of dread and hopelessness as the massive giant advanced on him. Gargunus roared and gave a furious swipe with the blade end of his hammer. It connected with Ramore's right arm. There was a horrible cracking noise as Ramore went flying through the air, pain overwhelming him. When he landed face down on the ground he chanced a glance at his right arm. The plating was cracked at the post where the blade had hit and an ooze of purple blood was trickling out. 'As if I didn't have enough to worry about now my arm his broken!' Ramore though furiously as he deactivated his right hand energy sword and returned it to his side. Gargunus gave a satisfied laugh and charged forward, going in for the kill.

Aaron tried to put weight on his bad leg and nearly collapsed the second he tried. Forcing himself into a kneeling position with all weight on his left knee he looked up in time to see Ramore take a direct hit from Gargunus's hammer. 'God,' he thought as Ramore went flying 'We can't stop him. He's too strong to take head on and nothing can get through that shield.' It was then that a distant memory surfaced in the back of his head. He recalled hearing how the Arbiter had killed Tartarus. He had been unable to breach Tartarus's shields. Sgt. Johnson had temporarily deactivated them by using…"RTAS!" shouted Aaron "BEAM RIFLE NOW!" as quick as a flash Rtas picked of the weapon with his good hand and threw it to Aaron who caught it and went prone. He peered down through the scope and lined up a shot.

Gargunus advancing on the wounded elite excitement rushing through him. These heretics didn't stand a chance against him and his mighty hammer. Now he had handicapped that elite who was standing there before him with only one sword left. But in the end it didn't matter if he had a Fuel Rod Cannon the shield created by the Fist of Rukt would be able to take it. He began to charge the Elite raising the Fist of Rukt high above his head, closing the gap at an alarming rate. He was nearly there when he felt what seemed to be three pinpricks in his shields. He swung his hammer down with all of his might the elite dashed forward dodging the hammer and stabbing towards his chest. Gargunus wanted to laugh at the Elite's pathetic last move, that is until he felt the energy sword pierce his chest. His eyes widened in fear. How was this possible? His shield was impenetrable. Glancing to the side he saw the Human holding a smoking beam rifle. Horrible understanding washed over him as he know realized what the pinpricks he had felt earlier had been. A horrible feeling of helplessness creep through Gargunus as his body began to become cold and then went limp.

Aaron, Ramore, and Rtas all let out sighs of relief at the same time. Gargunus Chieftain of the Jiralhanae was dead. As his body fell to the ground Ramore fell to his knees in fatigue. Rtas smiled a smile that was a cross between pride and grimness. Although the had won they had all sustained injuries that would prevent them from taking place in any more fighting. "Arbiter, Kenobi, Skywalker, Tano, Core, Spartan it's all up to you know," he muttered.

And chapter 10 AKA Boss Fight 1 is concluded sorry about the long update time I hope you enjoyed personally I like the way this one came out but if think that there are areas in which I can improve in please do not hesitate to share


	11. Salvation

Chapter 11

Salvation

Once again sorry about wait here you go

"GAH, damn it," swore Aaron as he pulled a pellet out of his leg. He Ramore and Rtas had taken one of the Warthog and had retreated to a save distance. Aaron had had some training in medicine and was tending to his injuries as well as he ones of his colleges. Rtas's injury had been easy just some bio-foam and a little bit of morphine for the pain. With Ramore all he could do was make a makeshift cast out of pieces of the Warthog that he tore off and a healthy dose of morphine. He had just finished pulling the pellets out of his leg as he reached for the bio-foam canister.

"Do you think that the others will be alright without us?" asked Ramore, who was on the Warthog gun in case they were attacked.

"Yeah they'll be fine," said Aaron as he plugged up his wounds with bio-foam, and his thoughts turned to a certain Togruta. "I hope she's ok," he muttered to himself. Unbeknownst to him Ramore and managed to hear what he had said.

'My suspicions were correct,' thought Ramore 'he does harbor feelings for Ahsoka.' Ramore paused not quite sure how to approach this situation. To the Sangheili, relationships, betrothals, and marriages were all signs of unity and happiness, especially in the last couple of decades. However to the Jedi this was not so, for they feared that their emotions would overwhelm them and cause them to turn to the dark side. 'Bah,' thought Ramore in a disgusted voice 'If they were true warriors they would be able to control their emotions on the battlefield. I know Ahsoka, she will be able to control her emotions, she has nothing to fear.'

There was still the matter of Rtas thought. He was right there and there was no way that Ramore could talk to Aaron without Rtas overhearing. Rtas liked to know everything there was to know able any ally he was working with or enemy that he was fighting. Most likely he knew about the Jedi's forbidding of attachments, but did he approve of it? "Ah the heck with it," Ramore muttered to himself as he turned to face Aaron. "She's going to be alright Aaron."

Aaron, who had just finished patching up his wounds with bio-foam and was about to inject himself with morphine, froze. 'Ah shit,' he thought 'As if I don't have enough problems right now. He found himself once again thanking God for his polarized helmet, which hid his now crimson face.

"What?" asked Rtas "What do you mean by that Ramore?" Before Ramore could answer Aaron muttered something under his breath, from which the word "Ahsoka" could be made out. "But what does…" understanding filled Rtas face. "Are you telling me that Aaron and Ahsoka are…" Ramore nodded and Aaron braced himself for the corning that he was about to receive.

He was surprised when Rtas let out a booming laugh. "HAHAHAHA. Aaron why are going to such lengths to keep this a secret from everyone?" asked Rtas grinning widely. "A relationship in this manner this looked upon fondly by nearly everyone in the Allied Species even by Hunters despite the fact that it doesn't happen to them. I'm sure that the Allied Species Council will be able to talk some sense into these Jedi…

I swear to the Gods forbidding marriages," he said dropping his voice in disgust. "I don't care how enlightened, trained or humble you are, you still feel emotion and keeping it all bottled up because there is a slight chance you might lose control is redundant not to mention unhealthy." Aaron couldn't help but smile. This speech from a very senior Sangheili was very reassuring and Aaron couldn't help but feel that his relationship with Ahsoka might not always have to be a secret.

Ahsoka jumped high up to avoid a swipe from a brute shot blade, and then stabbed the brute wielding it in the chest as she came down. She quickly pulled it out and took up a fighting stance when she realized all of the other Brutes were dead. Sighing in relief she deactivated her lightsaber and looked around. None of the others were hurt Obi-Wan and Anikan and deflected the spiker rounds and dodged the shot shells, John and Thel had shields, and Core had projected a field so strong none of the Brutes had been able to get near him.

"I believe that it the last of them," said Core as the field around him disappeared. "I'm going to attempt to hack into the mainframe in an attempt to sabotage the droids you should head up and attempt to lower the shields." As he finished the last sentence he floated up towards the ceiling and out of sight. Ahsoka suppressed a sigh, he had really been helpful in a fight, as she and the others headed forward. Apparently all non-combat personal had been evacuated to a safer spot, for they met no one as the advanced. They didn't even meet any combat personal. "Maybe because they all dug in somewhere." thought Ahsoka.

As they walked Thel raised his hand to his headset to answer an incoming transmission. "Rtas what is it? You won good. How bad? That's good. Oh really? I'll keep that in mind." Thel took his hand away from his head as he turned to face the others. "Apparently that giant gorilla that attacked us was Gargunus son of Tartarus and apparently new Chieftain of the Jiralhanae. Fortunately Rtas, Ramore, and Aaron were capably of defeating him, though unfortunately they were wounded." It took all of Ahsoka's self control to not squeak and the sound of Aaron being wounded. "Aaron got shot in the leg with a mauler, Rtas got shot in the hand with a spiker, and Ramore's arm was broken by a gravity hammer. They are all in stable condition and they retreated to a safe distance. They will be unable to assist us any further in taking this control room," and with that he continued forward.

Soon they came to a fork in their path. "Should we split up or stay together?" said Cortana from chief's headset. Before anyone could answer several spiker rounds flew overhead and several inhuman war cries were heard. Apparently a dozen brutes had flanked them and attacked them from behind. Thel and John brought their weapons around and returned fire while three lightsabers flared to life. Despite they counter-attack they were attempting to throw they found themselves retreating down the hallways, John, Thel, and Obi-Wan down one and Anikan and Ahsoka down the other.

John, Thel and Obi-wan had reached the end of the hallway that they had fled down and as they did they darted to the side to take up defensive positions. As the six Brutes that had pursed them approached, John threw a plasma grenade that killed two and then proceeded to kill a third with his old assault rifle, Thel sprayed down two with his plasma rifle and Obi-Wan ran the final one through with his lightsaber.

"Glad that's over said Obi-Wan as he pulled the lightsaber out of the Brute.

"I hate to break it to you Obi-Wan but it's not," said Thel. Obi-Wan turned around and saw what he was talking about. They were in the firing room and the Prophet of Salvation was there too.

"What's this?" he bellowed floating on his gravity throne surrounded by ten Brute honor guards. "Gargunus was supposed to destroy you all how could you have…" Salvation stopped and his eyes widened with fear as he looked at John. "The Demon it lives!" shouted Salvation in fear "Guards! Kill them!" The Honor Guards did not hesitate. Four had spikers three had carbines two had brute shots and one had a fuel rod cannon and all of them had itchy trigger fingers.

Fortunately Thel had a bubble shield on him, and he decided now to activate it.**(A/N the Allied Species' current bubble shield looks like the one in the starry night trailer with the same shield output as the on in halo 3) **The combined firepower of the ten Brutes and Salvation's modified fuel rod cannons all came crashing down upon the shield and it was a miracle that it held. Obi-Wan dashed out on the right and Thel dashed out of the left while John charged forward.

Using the Force in increase his speed Obi-Wan was able to dispatch two of the spiker Brutes easily before the carbine Brute started firing on him. His lightsaber turned into a windmill as he deflected the bolts of plasma back at them causing one to fall and never rise again. Thel sprayed the shot Brutes causing them to keel over before turning his rifle to help Obi-Wan help eliminate the carbine brutes several explosions from the fuel rod Brute eliminated all around him. Thel went flying and hit the wall near the entrance shields depleted and sustaining serious burns. The Brute turned to see that Obi-Wan had succeeded in dispatching the carbine Brutes and was now charging at him. Obi-Wan succeed in driving his lightsaber through the Brute but it wasn't enough to kill him. The Brute swung it's fuel rod cannon at Obi-Wan, flinging him back several feet and break sever ribs.

Before the Brute could take advantage of it, John jumped at him swinging at his neck with his rifle with such force that both rifle and neck broke. Now unarmed John began to charge at Salvation who began to panic and started firing his cannons at John in a very sloppy manner. John dodged them all with a graceful combination of flips ducks and slides until he had reached Salvation. Using the control panel for the firing room as a springboard, John launched himself up at Salvation. Grabbing on to his chair, John began to bring his fist down on Salvation's shield. Once, twice ,three times his fist fell hitting it over and over again until at long last the shield fell.

"NO!" shouted Salvation as John raised his hand again "The Great Journey I would have been a God. You took everything I've ever believed in and destroyed it!"

"I seem to do that a lot," said John as he brought his fist down again. Salvation gave a brief roar of pain as his neck broke and then there was silence. The last of the Prophets was dead.

Hope you like please review.

And so concludes boos fight number 2 the next couple of chapters will conclude the adventures of instillation 03 and I'll be sure to thrown in a couple of very interesting plot twists.

Spoilers to anyone who can guess who's fighting who in the next chapter.


	12. Crossroads

Chapter 12

Crossroads

I've been planning this chapter for a very long time nearly since the story began so I hope you enjoy it, I know I will.

On the bridge of the _Glorious Victory_ Vadmare Katar grinded his mandibles in frustration. It had been nearly 24 hours since the team had deployed onto Instillation 03 and still the shield was raised preventing any form of insertion. Vadmare sighed in frustration removing himself from his gravity chair and looking out of the bridge. Since instillation 03 had been discovered over 100 Allied Species vessels had warped in in response to the thread. A couple of republic ships had even joined the party including a Senator. She had identified herself as Padmé Amidala and seemed very concerned about the fate of the team that had landed. "I know it's the duty of a leader to watch out for their followers, but for one too drag themselves out into the middle of nowhere because three people that are allied to you are trapped behind lines? This is very strange, I wonder if she has a secondary motive that she isn't sharing with me. From what he had heard the Senator was on one of the Republic ships trying to establish contact with the ground team. "We'll see how that goes," said Vadmare to himself.

For about the tenth time in five minutes, Ahsoka's hand flew to her belt to make sure that her lightsaber was still there. She and Anikan had managed to dispatch the Brutes without too much trouble and they ad decided to keep advancing down the current hallway. Ahsoka was feeling awfully anxious. The Brutes had managed to divide their group twice now leaving them at a considerable disadvantage. Aaron, Ramore, and Rtas were out of the fight, and who knows what had happened to Obi-Wan, Thel, and John.

"Ahsoka," said Anikan "Let's talk about that Aaron Colton guy."

Ahsoka couldn't help but laugh "Yeah you two haven't exactly been getting along lately have you?"

"Not that," said Anikan slightly dryly "The other thing going on between him and you only."

Ahsoka stopped dead in her tracks her mind racing. 'What would Aaron say?' she thought to herself. 'Oh right, Fuck,' Blushing furiously Ahsoka decided that the best defense was a good offense and she decided to bring up a little bit of information that she had known for years. "With what's going between you and Padmé you're not exactly in an appropriate place to lecture me."

Anikan felt his own face heating up as he heard these words. He had not been expecting Ahsoka to know about his secret marriage. He couldn't help but look at his Padawan. She was no longer a child. Her Lekku **(A/N Lekku= head tails)** had nearly finished maturing, most likely they would finish in a month or two. She had started wearing Jedi robes instead of her regular attire. Most likely sooner than later she would be taking her Jedi trials. She was growing up. Anikan smiled. "Fine," "I'll my mouth shut about Aaron around you, if you keep your mouth shut about Padmé around me. Deal?" Ahsoka nodded grinning slightly.

Sitting nearby the Warthog Aaron gave a violent sneeze. 'Hm,' he thought as he rummaged through his supplies and pulled out an apple. 'That was weird,'

As Anikan and Ahsoka slowly advanced they began to notice something. The technology around them was becoming less elegant and more crude. 'CIS technology,' thought Ahsoka as she walked through the crude devices. 'I guess we're going the right way.'

They continued forward facing no more opposition than a droid or two that only took seconds to dispatch. Right around this point the droids started acting oddly. Some of them would ramble on mindlessly, others would just ignore them, and some just promptly shot themselves. 'Go Core,' thought Ahsoka.

They soon found themselves in a large room with a straight walkway, about one or two men wide, leading to the other side. The walkway was over a massive pit, whose bottom could not be seen. The walkway was the only way across into the next room and unfortunately it had a guardian. General Grievous stood on the walkway with all four arms holding an active lightsaber. Ahsoka and Anikan ignited their lightsabers and held them in a standard fighting stance, standing at the beginning of the walkway.

"You sniveling Jedi have caused enough problems already, you will not jeopardize this operation any further."

Ahsoka was about to open her mouth and give a clever retort when she realized that Anikan was no longer next to her. He was charging at Grievous hoping to catch him off guard. It nearly worked but grievous was able to block the slash that Anikan had thrown at him. Anikan quickly slid his lightsaber along Grievous' and was able to cut off his upper right hand. Anikan jumped back to avoid the widely swinging lightsabers of Grievous and then jumped forward executing a stab towards Grievous's chest. That was a mistake. Grievous pivoted to his right, and with a slash of his remaining right hand, he cut off Anikan's robotic arm. Anikan barely had time to let out a cry of pain before Grievous kicked him squarely in the head, causing him fly back a couple of feet unconscious.

Before Grievous could make another move however, Ahsoka had charged at him cutting off his secondary left arm. Spinning his remaining hands like propellers Grievous advanced on Ahsoka, who used the force to jump over him and attempted to strike him from behind. Grievous managed to bring his lightsabers around and blocked the blow pushing forward causing Ahsoka to stumble back. Grievous gave a roar as he threw a stab at Ahsoka who did not move quickly enough.

Pain tore through Ahsoka as the lightsaber cut through her right side nearly, cutting the lining of her stomach. Ahsoka managed to jump back and kick Grievous' hand causing the lightsaber in it to fly out of his hand, and into the pit below them. Ahsoka jumped back clutching the wound in her side with her left hand while she held her lightsaber in her right. Grievous only had one lightsaber in his right hand, but Ahsoka's wound was roaring in pain. It would seriously inhibit her ability to fight. Ahsoka sank to one knee the pain weighing her down.

"By the way there is something you might want to know," said Grievous.

"Oh? And what might that be?" asked Ahsoka.

"My master ordered that if I get the chance I should forward a message to you," said Grievous in a tone that suggested that he would rather be killing Ahsoka right now. "He says that he is aware of your relationship with the human via means of a recon droid and he is willing to extend an offer. He say's that if you would give into the dark side he, and everyone else you care about, would not be harmed and would be welcomed with open arms."

Ahsoka said nothing absorbing what she had just been told. Of course she would sooner kill herself than fight alongside Grievous and whatever master he ma serve, a thought had occurred to her. If she gave into her emotions than, more likely than not, she would be able to kill Grievous and walk away alive. But was it worth the risk of succumbing to the evil that had claimed so many? As she pondered this, without warning, she felt the force wash over her cutting off all of her senses.

When her senses returned to her she saw that she was standing on an open plane with Grievous before her. She raised her hand and lighting shot out engulfing Grievous. He fell to the ground writhing in pain as Ahsoka kept up the assault. She felt excitement coursing through her, too see the being that had caused to much pain writhing before her felt invigorating. But it wasn't enough, no, he needed to suffer more. She intensified the lighting and Grievous roared in pain at the refined assault, and then lay still. Ahsoka threw back her head and began to laugh insanely in the pleasure of her victory. Grinning evilly she turned to look at her prey again, and felt her mouth drop in horror. Lying were Grievous had been mere seconds ago, now lay the body of a man in pitch- black armor. It was Aaron, and he was dead. "No," Ahsoka whispered to herself looking at her hands, the hands that had just taken life from Aaron. She felt tears building up in her eyes threatening to overwhelm her. She dropped to her knees silently weeping, unable to form a complete thought. And then it call came crashing down on her, and as the tears began to flow freely she screamed to the heavens "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The next thing she knew she was once again on the walkway opposite Grievous opposite her. She had fallen to all fours and her face was slightly wet with tears. 'It…it was only a vision,' Ahsoka thought as she dried her tears and, with some difficulty, got to her feet. "Grievous," she said in a quite voice, before raising to a shout "I WOULD RATHER DISEMBOLW MYSELF BEFORE EVEN CONSIDERING JOINING YOU!"

"Fine by me," said the droid as he charged at Ahsoka. With surprising speed. Ahsoka brought up her lightsaber to block Grievous's and then proceeded to launch a lighting fast series of blows. Grievous was barely able to block in time and found himself desperately swinging his lightsaber to block the oncoming blows. As he continued to block the oncoming assault he noticed that Ahsoka's arms were beginning to slow, the wound was beginning to take it's toll. As both lightsabers connected and a clash began, Grievous decided to take advantage of it and punched Ahsoka squarely in the stomach. Breath left her body as Ahsoka was thrown back her lightsaber falling out of her grip. She vaguely registered that she had fallen face up onto the ground.

"You should have taken the offer scum," said Grievous "you never stood a chance against me."

"Look me in the eye and say that," Ahsoka said bitterly as she flipped herself over onto all fours, and attempted and failed to stand up.

"As you wish," said the droid as he grabbed Ahsoka by the throat with his free hand and lifting her up so that their eyes were three inches away. "My face will be the last thing you pathetic eyes ever see," said Grievous as he brought his lightsaber back in preparation to swing.

But before he could execute his finishing move Ahsoka brought her hand up to Grievous' throat and the droid felt something pierce his neck. Ahsoka had stabbed Grievous with the Jackal knife that Aaron had given her. Crying in pain Grievous dropped Ahsoka as he instinctively reached towards the knife. Using all of her strength, Ahsoka called upon the force and pushed Grievous off of the walkway. He screamed as he fell until the knife exploded and he was heard from no more. Ahsoka fell on all fours again exhausted. She could barley comprehend what she had just done. 'I just killed General Grievous,' Just them the force washed over her again and all off her senses were smothered.

When her senses returned she found herself standing in a white room. Just as she started to wonder were she was she heard a cry of agony and turned around to face the source. A fully grown Togruta was lying on a bed shrieking in agony. A Human beside her was holding her hand while another and his hands extended underneath her raised legs. With a jolt, Ahsoka realized that the woman was giving birth. Looking down she saw that the baby was nearly out. With a final agonized shriek the Togrutan baby came out the doctor quickly cutting the cord and wrapping it in a blanket. As the afterbirth was dealt with baby cried loudly as it was cleaned. After the afterbirth the baby, who had cried itself to sleep, was handed to the mother who's eyes were brimming with happiness as she looking down at her child. Ahsoka couldn't help but smile at the events that took place before her. "It's a girl," he whispered.

"She looks just like you Ahsoka," said the man looking at the baby.

"But she has your eyes Aaron," said the Togruta.

Ahsoka's eyes snapped open in shock. Once again, she was on the walkway in Instillation 03. Tears were filling her eyes again, but these were tears of joy. "Aaron and I," she whispered to herself "Are going to have a beautiful baby girl." Tears flowed freely and she thought of the child that she had seen. It had easily been one of the most beautiful things in her life. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Anikan stirring and getting to his feet. Clutching his stump of an arm he turned and saw Ahsoka on her knees and crying. "Snips?" he said hesitantly "Are you alright?"

Despite the fact that she was crying a smile found it's way to Ahsoka's face as she said "Trust me master I've never felt better."

I've been planning this for so long and I'm proud of it so please review it really means a lot to me.


	13. Aftermath

Chapter 13

Aftermath

Here you go, enjoy

Everything went dark after that. The combined pain of the damage Grievous had inflicted and the strain she had put on herself proved to be more than Ahsoka could handle. When she came to she felt herself lying on a very soft bed. 'Why I am I getting a feeling of déjà vu?' thought Ahsoka. She realized that the place were Grievous had slashed her wasn't hurting in the slightest. Reaching to it, she found that it had completely healed. She then reached for her belt and found that someone had reattached her lightsaber. Opening her eyes, Ahsoka sat up in her bed and looked around. Again, she was lying in the medical bay of the _Glorious Victory_. As she got up the door opened and Vadmare Katar walked in. "Ah good you have awakened," he said.

"What happened?" asked Ahsoka.

"Apparently your passed out after your battle. Skywalker deactivated the shield around Halo and then regrouped with the others. They lifted you into a Phantom and then you and the others were transported back here. Nearly everyone in the team was injured so treatment was required for all that were. Engineers produce a liquid that accelerates healing until the wound is healed so we got you all patched up in no time. You need not participate in the fighting anymore, we already have hundreds of thousands of troops on Halo. Aaron and Ramore are just resting now."

"Umm," said Ahsoka biting her lip "What happened to everyone else?"

"Well," said Vadmare "Rtas was shot in the hand with a spiker, Ramore had several broken bones in his arm due to a blow from a gravity hammer, Aaron was shot in the leg with a mauler, Obi-Wan had several ribs broken when a Brute dealt a blow to his chest, Thel sustained second and third degree burns from a fuel rod cannon and, as you know, Skywalker's mechanical arm was cut off. John-117 was the only one who came off of the ring unscathed." Vadmare grinned at this point. "I still can't believe it. The legendary SPARTAN lives HA! Let's see how the CIS handle this!" He shook his head "Sorry got a little carried away. By the way someone called Yoda came aboard. He said that when you regained consciousness, if you feel up to it, you should go see him in the room to your right at the end of the hall. Oh, and the Allied Species Space Command wanted me to give you this." Vadmare held out two small black boxes. Ahsoka took both of them, and hesitantly opened them.

There was a medal inside of each one, one a purple heart and the other an orange star like one. "This one," said Vadmare pointing to the heart "Is the purple heart awarded to those who are wounded in action. This one," he pointed to the star "Is the medal of honor, the highest honor a warrior can receive obtained by undergoing hardships so great that no officer could possible give them. Apparently command decided that a team of seven battling so that we could take control of a Halo fell under these conditions."

Ahsoka got up and nodded her head slightly "It's been on honor to follow you Vadmare Katar,"

"It's been an honor to lead you Ahsoka Tano," the Elite replied. "Now then you might want to go see Yoda, he said he didn't have much time to spare." Ahsoka nodded, placed her medals on the bedside table, and ran out of the room.

As she approached the end of the hallway she entered a room she was familiar with. It was a meditation room that Sangheili warriors used to calm their nerves and clear their minds. Many other species used this room because of the calming atmosphere. Ahsoka could even recall meditating in here once or twice. Master Yoda was currently meditating with his back to Ahsoka. "Master Yoda," said Ahsoka dropping to one knee in respect.

"Young Tano," said the Jedi Grandmaster as she turned to face Ahsoka "Wonder why I am here do you?" Ahsoka nodded. "Came here when I heard about Halo I did. But a great disturbance in the force I felt.

"A disturbance?" asked Ahsoka.

"Yes," said Yoda "A disturbance. Emanated from you it did. "At first like that of one turning to the dark side it felt. Then bright it turned, very bright. Tempted by the dark side you were." Looking Ahsoka in the eye he said "Grown attached to someone on this ship you have?"

In spite of herself Ahsoka blushed. Why wasn't she surprised that Yoda had been able to figure this Ahsoka said "Not grown attached, fell in love."

"Realize that the Jedi code forbids this do you?"

"Yes Master,"

"Realize that this could jeopardize your position as a Jedi you do?

"Yes Master,"

"Realize that you could be expelled from the order you do?"

"Yes Master,"

Sighing Yoda said "Ahsoka Tano you are a Padawan of the Jedi Order no more." Ahsoka couldn't help but groan. She had seen this coming but it didn't change the fact that what she had been working her whole life for had just gone down the "A Jedi Knight you are." Ahsoka's head snapped up and looked into Yoda's face on which a small grin could be seen. "Passed all of your trials you have. Passed the trials of skill and courage when you fought Grievous you have. Passed the trail of flesh when slashed you have. Passed the trial of spirit when you witnessed your vision and were tempted you have." Yoda smiled "Able to tell something from the disturbance in the force I was. Your relationship with young Colton prevented you from turning it did,"

Ahsoka felt herself smiling when something occurred to her "Wait how did you figure out it was Aaron?" she asked sternly.

"When lived for so long you have, easier to spot things are." When he noticed Ahsoka looking at him sternly he added "And told me young Colton did. Tried to take all of the blame he did, say that he assaulted you he did. Saw that he was lying I did, and clamed his nerves I did. Cares for you very greatly he does." Yoda got to his feet and made to leave looking back as he did. "Reassigned Skywalker, and Kenobi I have, but on this ship I would like you to remain. Established good contacts with the Allied Species you have. An ambassador you shall be. One last thing. Keep this relationship hidden between you Colton, and trustworthy ones you must. The rest of the council take this well they will not. How to approach this I must think," and with that he left.

Ahsoka got to her feet, her head swimming. This was all too much. The Allied Species gave her the highest honor that they could, then she became a Jedi knight, and then Yoda found out about her relationship with Aaron and was alright with it. She sighed closing her eyes and rubbing them. 'What the heck do I do now?' she thought. As she opened her eyes again, a thought occurred to her and a smile covered her face.

Aaron woke in his bed but kept his eyes shut. He had removed his ODST armor revealing the t-shirt and shorts he had been wearing underneath. After everything on Halo he felt that he had earned the right to slip in a little more sleep time. Right about then he heard a small giggled and realized that he felt something very soft a warm rubbing up against him. Opening his eyes he found a pair of bright blue ones right in front of him. He realized that Ahsoka had crawled into his bed and was now lying on top of him as his heart rate doubled. "Hi there," she said smiling brightly. "What's this I hear about you trying to take the fall for me?" she asked as she gently nuzzled her face against his.

"I well…I…Um," he stuttered distracted by the closeness that they were sharing. "You have a lot more ahead of me than I do and I thought that there was no reason for both of us to take the fall, so when Yoda said that he was looking for you I thought it was because of…you know."

Ahsoka giggled as she said "Aaron, you and I both have a bright future ahead of us. Look at this." She raised her hand and put her index and middle finger to his forehead. **(A/N I'm not sure if Jedi can actually do this but let's just say for the sake of argument that they can)** Aaron's eyes went blank for a few seconds as Ahsoka shot mental images into his brain, images of the vision that she had seen after defeating Grievous. When his eyes refocused they were wide with shock. "We're going to be…" Ahsoka nodded eagerly. Aaron positioned his arm around Ahsoka's neck and pulled her in close for a very loving kiss.

A cool down chapter

In other words I need a little bit of advice. Should I have the Jedi Purge occur in my story, should I have it attempted but it fails, or should I make it so it never happens in the first place? Please give me your opinion and as always review.


	14. Things Darken

Chapter 14

Things Darken

Large amounts of these lines are taken directly from revenge of the sith

Chancellor Palpatine, also known to a select few as Darth Sidious, scowled as he sat in his office a month after the Battle of Instillation 03. To say that he was angry, was like saying that a tornado was a pleasant summer breeze. He was livid, for plans he had been putting into action for years were in jeopardy. Nearly all of the pieces had been in place when everything had gone wrong. A single CIS commander had gotten greedy and attacked a planet and had awoken the wrath of an entire galaxy. These Allied Species were causing everything to fall apart. When he gave Order 66 there was a good chance that they would stand in the way of the clones, for in the months since they had made contact, they had spread out joining forces with the Jedi armies, and a good number of Jedi would survive. Large numbers would still die but enough would still stand to counterattack, and bring him down.

Then along cane the Prophet of Salvation offering him exactly what his name entailed. He had told him of a weapon that could cripple the Allied Species and put them out of the war. Immediately he had forces dispatched to fire it, but the machines of the ring had stood against him. Then that coward Grievous had revealed their knowledge of the ring to the Allied Species when he had fled from Naboo. All of his commanders on the ring had either been killed or captured, and he had learned that the Allied Species had taken steps to render the ring harmless.

Palpatine grinned as he remembered the one good thing that had happened this month. Two weeks ago he had ordered Dooku to launch a massive assault on Coruscant and to stage a kidnapping of him. Skywalker and Kenobi had gone onboard his ship to rescue him, and in the process Skywalker had killed Dooku in cold blood. "I may still be able to turn him to the dark side," Palpatine muttered to himself 'But I must also give Order 66 as soon a possible. The longer I wait, the more the Allied Species will spread out to help the Jedi, and less and less will die." Palpatine contemplated his options thinking furiously.

"We're what!" Ahsoka asked Aaron.

"You heard me we're riding the Scarab in," said Aaron pointing the massive walked in the cargo bay of the _Glorious Victory. _

"Don't be nervous," said Ramore "It's actually not that different from using HEV pods. It's a little safer in fact since we have to go all the way down to low orbit before we deploy." They were currently part of their attack squadron again, heading to Felucia to assist Jedi Master Aayla Secura. She had been deployed to Felucia to uncover a plot to poison the water and had discovered that the CIS had a heavy presence there. She believed that her forces were more than capable of defeating them, but they had been in the area, and recently promoted Fleet Master Vadmare Katar wouldn't take no for an answer. Despite his promotion Vadmare's vessel was still the _Glorious Victory_ of which the crew approved of highly.

"Where's Core?" asked Ahsoka, looking around for the floating sphere. Of the team that had operated on Halo, only four remained on the _Glorious Victory._ Skywalker and Kenobi had been given a private mission, Thel and Rtas had their own fleets to command, and ONI had pulled John back to Earth the second he got off of the ring, not surprising really. Core had stuck around for three reasons. First off he was looking to get some payback at the CIS, second the Index had been stored in his data banks where he had encrypted it and decided it would be good to get some distance between him and the ring, and finally he had just grown attached to the others.

"In the control room," said Core as he floated out of the Scarab. The current Scarabs had a control room nowadays because the Hunters had a problem being used as a brain for it. "I find this to be rather interesting. I see that you have improved the armor to the legs making them far more durable than they were a couple of decades ago."

Ramore nodded. "That little flaw was the downfall of many Scarabs. I see you've been looking through are data archives."

"Looking!?" He analyzed every single byte in a couple of minutes," said Aaron.

"I was bored," Core said lamely. "Anyway we're going to be there in a few minutes we better get on board. Nodding in agreement the small group climbed inside the Scarab control room, joined by Elites, Brutes, Humans and Grunts. The doors closed in order to prevent a vacuum as the squadron dropped out of slipspace. They could hear the hum of phantoms and knew that they must be in orbit. A few minutes later a transmission emanated from the controls, which two elite majors domos were manning.

"Scarab crews prepare for deployment," said Vadmare Katar. Everyone in the control room grabbed handles built for personal holding on for drops. The high density metal of the Scarab absorbed most of the sensations of the drop and the landing, although the crew still felt it significantly. "Deploying in 3...2...1. Deploy!" The floor beneath the Scarab opened up and the clamps holding it in place were released as the walker began a free fall to the planet.

Aayla Secura was gazing through a pair of binoculars** (A/N or whatever they call the republic version of it)** at the CIS lines. "They haven't moved for hours now," she said.

"I say we take em now before they have more time to dig in," said Commander Bly, who was standing behind her.

"Bly I say we give these Allied Species guys a chance to show their hand." said Aayla "It may prevent a lot of unnecessary deaths." Bly grumbled something underneath his breath but shut up. They both looked up to see a wave of green drop ships approaching. As they approached the surface the dropped off their loads of troops and various vehicles. One landed a few feet away from them, and soldiers of various races jumped out. There was a very odd mix, with some only a few feet high, while there were two giants in blue armor that easily reached twelve feet.

Vadmare Katar disembarked the vessel after the two Hunters had jumped off. The small group of grunts were waddling about squeaking excitedly holding their fuel rod cannons and plasma rifles. Walking forward he stretched out his hand saying "Miss Secura, it's an honor to meet you. I am Fleet Master Vadmare Katar,"

Aayla took his hand and shook it. "Vadmare Katar," she said "Weren't you there when the Separatists found that Halo thing?"

Vadmare nodded. Looking around at the landing forces and the drop ships returning to the main ships for a fresh load, Bly said "I gotta say I'm not exactly impressed."

Vadmare raised an eyelid. From what he'd heard the clones didn't trust the Allied Species very much and he'd had to admit he found the clones a little disturbing. Entire armies made of the same DNA, and apparently who followed questions without orders, and considered themselves expendable, Vadmare felt this situation to be a little unnerving. "Well then," he said "Let me show you the big guns." Activating his connection to the Battle-Net Vadmare said "Scarab crews prepare for deployment. Deploying in 3...2...1. Deploy!" Five seconds later three large purple walkers slammer into the ground, having been deployed from low orbit. "Standard rule of thumb," said Vadmare to the stunned Bly and grinning Aayla "stay behind the Scarabs and mop up what they miss.

The second the Scarabs hit the ground the doors opened again and the crew sprang into action. Everyone on the Scarab had a job to do. Ramore and Aaron's was to provide additional firepower using their marksmanship, while Ahsoka helped guard the rear entrance. Ahsoka was standing there right know with a Brute manning the plasma turret and two mark V Marines with assault rifles.

"You Ahsoka Tano?" asked one of the Marines. Ahsoka nodded. "Heard about what you did on Halo," said the Marine as he extended his hand "Honor to meet you."

"Likewise," said Ahsoka smiling and shaking the Marine's hand before turning her attention back to the entrance in case some droids managed to sneak around.

Palpatine was gazing out of the window in his office when Anakin entered. "You wished to see me Chancellor?" said Anakin.

"Yes Anakin," said Palpatine as he turned to face Anakin. "I would like to have a word with you. Do you ever wonder why the Jedi refuse to give you the rank of master despite the fact your Padawan had become a knight and you are on the council?" **(A/N in reality it's because he's as arrogant and reckless as hell)**

"I wish I knew," said Anakin "More and more I get the feeling I'm being excluded from the council. I know that there are things about the force that they're not telling me."

"They don't trust you do they? They see your future, they know your power will be too strong to control you must break through the fog of lies the Jedi have created around you." As he spoke Palpatine began to walk out his office with Anakin right behind him. "Let me help you know the subtleties of the force."

"How do you know the ways of the force?" asked Anakin

"My mentor taught me everything about the force." said Palpatine. "Even the nature of the dark side."

"You know the dark side?" asked Anakin looking at him.

"Be careful of the Jedi Anakin," said Palpatine stopping "Only through me can you achieve a power greater than any Jedi learn to know the dark side of the force and you will be able to save your wife from certain death."

"What did you say?" asked Anakin

"Use my knowledge I beg you," said Palpatine

Anakin ignited his lightsaber "You're the Sith lord," he said

"I know what's been troubling you," said Palpatine "Listen to me. Don't continue to be a pawn of the Jedi council. Ever since I've know you you've been searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi, of significance of conscious." There was a pause as Anakin raised his lightsaber slightly towards Palpatine's throat. "Are you going to kill me?"

"I would certainly like to," Anakin replied.

"I know you would," said Palpatine. "I can feel your anger, it gives you focus, makes you stronger."

Anakin deactivated his lightsaber. "I'm going to give you over to the Jedi council."

"Of course, you should," said Palpatine "But you're not sure of their true intentions are you?"

"I will quickly discover the truth of all this,"

"You have great wisdom Anakin, learn the power of the dark side, the power to save Padmé." Anakin said nothing as he walked out.

Had to stop here because things would've run together plus I like to screw with you

So in addition to order 66 tell me what I should do with Anakin in your reviews please


	15. Order 66

Chapter 15

Order 66

Aaron fired the last bullet in his magazine, eliminating a super battle droid, before swapping it out for a fresh one. The Scarabs had had no problem smashing through the CIS lines and the droids were panicking. ATTEs were right behind the Scarabs along with a mob of infantry picking off whatever they missed.

Several Hailfire tanks fired their entire missile loads at the Scarabs' front right light. The armor collapsed under the strain as the Scarab collapsed slightly, rendering the Scarab vulnerable to boarders. Core floated out of the control room shouting "I can get this thing up and running again but I need you to keep the scrap buckets off of my back!" before withdrawing back into the control room.

"Com'on," shouted Aaron as he began unloading rounds at the approaching droids. Ramore, two brute minors, and six grunts added their fire power to the mix. Many of the droids fell but some managed to slip around to the rear, but all they found awaiting them there was a plasma turret, two assault rifles, and a lightsaber all four of which tore them apart.

"Any day now!" shouted one of the Marines. Core swore at the marine in Elite, as a response as the Scarab began to rise again it's primary weapon charging. The droids realized too late what was happening and before they could run the green beam of the Scarab cannon had already engulfed them.

Back on Coruscant Anakin had only left the office to hold his head in his hands. He just didn't know what to do, should he make sure the Palpatine was removed from office, or should he listen to him and save Padmé's life? Pressing his fingers into his eyes Anakin let out a moan of frustration. "What do I do?" he muttered to himself. He couldn't lose Padmé, he just couldn't. But would she be able to even look at him after he joined the dark side? Turning around he headed back to Palpatine's office. He wouldn't lose Padmé.

Vadmare Katar couldn't help but smile as the two Hunters he had brought with him smashed half a dozen droids with their shields and then fired their assault cannons, frying another group. Turning his focus back to the fight he grabbed the staff of a Magna guard that had been about to impale him, threw it to the side and then, using his energy sword, cut the droid in half horizontally. Around half a dozen yards to his left Aayla Secure was dispatching droids left and right with her lightsaber like it was a dance. Bly and five other clones were right behind but they weren't getting very much action because their general kept beating them to the punch. 'What she lacks in strength in makes up for in skill and grace, and in addition to that she cared deeply for her solders.' thought Vadmare 'Signs of a true warrior.'

The droids were panicking, they were abandoning their posts and were retreating. Two of the Scarabs continued after them but they one that had been damaged by the Hailfire tanks remained behind. It's damaged leg would make it easier for the CIS to disable it again in the future so it wasn't going anywhere again until it was repaired. The majority of the republic and Allied Species forces hung back, letting the Scarabs do the work.

Vadmare, along with the Hunters, Grunts, Aayla, and the clones approached the Scarab. As they did Core floated out stopping a few feet away from Vadmare. "Ah Fleet Master you decided to join the party," he said happily. "Well I'm sorry to say that it'll take awhile before the Scarab's armor can be fully repaired. I would recommend transferring it to the _Glorious Victory _for repairs."

Vadmare nodded as he spoke into the Battle-Net "_Glorious Victory _we need a Scarab pickup down here," receiving a reply that they were on the way. Ramore jumped off of the Scarab, landed neatly on his feet with Aaron right behind him. The rest of the crew exited the Scarab, the Marines, the Brute, and Ahsoka climbed out of the rear exit, while everyone else jumped down. "Dooku's and Grievous's deaths are showing," said Aaron to Vadmare. "Their defenses were poorly organized and they were mainly relying on firepower to kill us."

"Didn't they do that anyway?" asked one of the Marines and everyone, except the clones, laughed. Bly merely looked grimly on when he heard his communicator beep. Walking away with the other clones he activated his holographic projector and a hologram of Palpatine appeared. "Commander Bly, the time has come." he said "Execute order 66. Kill Aayla Secure and Ahsoka Tano."

Palpatine smiling in a sadistic manner as the hologram of commander Bly said "It will be dome my Lord," and disappeared. He had decided that it was for the best if he gave the order sooner than planned. Anakin had already began to walk the path of the dark side when he killed Dooku. His fear of losing his wife would convince him into joining the dark side, and then when he had joined Padmé would be unable to look at him, breaking him in completely.

"You bastard," said a voice from the doorway. Palpatine froze inwardly cursing at himself before turning to face the doorway to see Anakin there. "That's what it was all about wasn't it? You just wanted me to help you destroy the Jedi didn't you? And to think that I was about to throw away everything I trained for just to give into the lies you told me." He took up a fighting stance "Make no mistake Palatine, I will kill you."

'Why? Why did I just have to say the names of the Jedi?' Palpatine inwardly cursed at himself while mantaning a face that gave away nothing more than a faint trace of anger. Palpatine used the force to summon a lightsaber from an unseen location. "So be it. Jedi," he said before igniting his lightsaber and performing a vicious twirling jump at Anakin.

"It will be done my lord," said Bly as he deactivated his holographic projector. Gesturing to the other clones they made their way back to the group. Bly sized up the opposition, most likely he and his men would be gunned down after they shot the Jedi but that was irrelevant he had been created to follow orders and that is what he would do. He raised his blaster lining up a shot that would Ahsoka Tano and prepared to pull the trigger.

As he pulled the trigger Bly felt something massive slam into his chest breaking several ribs. The shot that he fired went astray, only hitting Ahsoka in the arm. She fell over clutching her arm, only to be caught by Aaron. As Bly hit the ground, his blaster flying out of sight, he saw that one of the Hunters had slammed him with it's shield. The other hunter had fired it's assault cannon at the other clones, frying them all. Bly attempted to get up, but before he could, a powerful three fingered hand grabbed him around the throat. The same hand forcible lifted him up so that his feet weren't touching the ground, and Bly saw a black armored Elite glaring at him with murder in his eyes.

'Lucky for us that Hunters are extremely paranoid and don't trust anyone until they've known them for awhile,' thought Vadmare as Aaron gently lowered Ahsoka to the ground. 'Bly might not know it but he's getting off easy. Ramore defiantly is going to make him suffer, but what he's going to do pales in comparison to what Aaron would do to him.' Aaron was currently tending Ahsoka's wound which actually wasn't that serious. It was most likely causing more pain than damage, but still it was for the better that it was treated.

"Alright," said Ramore to Bly in a cold voice, as he tore off the clone's helmet "You have ten seconds to tell me why you just did that before I use my energy sword to turn you into a jigsaw puzzle." Anyone who knew Ramore knew that if Bly kept his mouth shut, then Ramore would carry out his threat with deadly effectiveness.

"I was ordered to," said Bly with no emotion on his face or in his face. "In fact my brothers across the galaxy are probably being given the same order right now."

"What order?" asked Ramore anger apparent in his voice "And who gave it to you?"

"Chancellor Palpatine gave order 66, which means he told me and my brothers to eliminate all of the Jedi for the safety of the republic."

Silence followed these words as everyone took in what had just been said. Aayla's voice broke the silence. It didn't show but she was holding back tears. "Bly…I…I thought we were friends."

"We were, and we still are," said Bly no emotion crossing his face "But my orders come first."

Bly didn't get to say anything else because Ramore had chosen this moment to punch him in the chest causing him considerable agony and breaking the rest of his ribs. "DO HAVE A MIND OF YOUR OWN CLONE?! Ramore bellowed. "IF YOU DO YOU'VE GOT A FUNNY WAY OF SHOWING IT. DIDN'T YOU STOP AND THINK FOR A SINGLE SECOND THAT MABYE YOU CHANCELLOR DIDN'T HAVE THE BEST INETIONS FOR THE REBULIC IN MIND?!"

"I was ordered too, I wasn't trained to question the orders of my superiors." said Bly anger showing in his voice. Ramore simply lost control at this point. He activated his energy sword and ran Bly through, so that the blade came out on the other side. Letting the body fall to the ground Ramore threw his head back and let out a roar that promised several things to the clones, none of them pretty.

Vadmare's hand flew to his com unit as he began to talk. "This is Fleet Master Vadmare Katar authorizing Battle-Net wide transmission level Omega authorization code 03032553." He said in a slightly panicky voice. "All Allied Species troopers if there are any Jedi in your area you have orders to protect them. The Chancellor of the republic has betrayed the Jedi and ordered the clones to kill them, you are authorized to use lethal force to stop them and bring all rescued Jedi to rendezvous point Epsilon." Vadmare ending his transmission with a heavy heart. A level Omega Battle-Net transmission was a very big deal, only to be given when it was necessary for Allied Species troops to act immediately. The punishment for abusing a transmission of such high caliber was death, and Vadmare Katar found himself wishing that he had abused it.

Well please tell me what you think.

FYI the code was the date of the last scene in halo three 03/03/2553


	16. A Wound in the Force

Chapter 16

A Wound in the Force

Anakin barely managed to bring up his lightsaber in time to block the oncoming demon known as Palpatine. With seemly random, but deadly accurate movements, Palpatine threw strike after strike at Anakin who was barely able to block. Advancing without mercy, Palpatine continued to advance on Anakin forcing him back. Anakin began to gain his ground a little bit and made his own attack. Red met blue when the two lightsabers clashed together. "You're too late to make much of a difference," said Palpatine from across the crossing blades "I gave the order to more commanders before you came in and even now they relay the order all over the galaxy."

On Cato Neimoidia Plo Koon sped forward in his Jedi starfighter with two ARC-170s behind him. A hologram of a clone appeared in both ARC cockpits. "We've been given order 66," said the clone "To be carried out immediately." The clones nodded stoically as they positioned their fighters to line up a shot. But before they could get off more than one shot, which missed, two Eagle fighters came out nowhere and destroyed both ARC's with lock on missiles.

"Plo Koon!" one of the pilots shouted into his communications "You and the entire Jedi order have been betrayed by your chancellor. Follow us back to the ship we're taking you to a safe place. Plo Koon was at a lost for words and seemed to be in shock about what was happening, nonetheless he followed the Eagles to the Allied Species ships in orbit.

Anakin and Palpatine were taking furious swings at each other. Anakin had actually managed to force Palpatine on the defensive a little. Palpatine blocked an oncoming blow from Anakin and forced his lightsaber to the right so that the giant window they had been standing next to shattered. In an act of desperation Anakin threw a kick at Palpatine's lightsaber hand and felt a little surprised when Palpatine stumbled and fell over, his lightsaber falling all the way down to the streets. Palpatine scuttled backwards until he hit the wall, at which point Anakin put the point of his lightsaber to his throat.

"Sorry Palpatine," said Anakin "You have lost."

"No," said Palpatine in an inhuman voice "No, no you will die" shouted Palpatine as lighting shot from his fingertips. Anakin instinctively raised his lightsaber in an attempt to block the lighting. He partially succeeded and some of the lighting was deflected back at Palpatine disfiguring his face horribly. Most of the lighting, due to Anakin's lack of experience with dealing with it, built up between the two of them until it exploded. Anakin was sent flying out of the window while Palpatine was thrown back into the office.

Picking himself up gingerly Palpatine looked out of the window great disappointment on his face. "Such a waste," he said "He would have made a fine sith." There was no time for regretting what could have been right now there was work to be done. Palpatine smiled evilly to himself as he activated a holographic projector. "Commander Cody," he said to the clone "Order 66 is in effect. You are to take the 501st Legion to the Jedi temple and kill every single last Jedi there. Cody nodded muttering "It will be done my lord," before the projection disappeared.

Plo Koon jumped out of his starfighter, having just landed in the Carrier _Calm Before the Battle. _Looking around he noticed that the Allied Species seemed to be withdrawing all of their forces from the planet. One of the Eagle pilots approaching him saying "We're aborting the operation on this planet, this energy message just came through." Pushing a button on his helmet a recording played. "This is Fleet Master Vadmare Katar authorizing Battle-Net wide transmission level Omega authorization code 03032553. All Allied Species troopers if there are any Jedi in your area you have orders to protect them. The Chancellor of the republic has betrayed the Jedi and ordered the clones to kill them, you are authorized to use lethal force to stop them and bring all rescued Jedi to rendezvous point Epsilon."

Plo Koon was lost for words as he heard the recording play. 'Palpatine betrayed us how could he do this to us?' he thought. He wanted to say these words but instead he found himself saying "What's rendezvous point Epsilon?"

"Earth," said the pilot plainly.

"Suppressing fire NOW!" shouted a Marine to his colleges. They sprayed superheated bullets at the oncoming clones forcing them to put their heads down, so that the Marine who had given the order could run forward to retrieve a wounded comrade. Nearly an hour ago clone troopers had launched an all out assault on the Jedi temple. They had received an Omega level Battle-Net wide transmission five minutes before they had arrived and that might have made all of the difference in the world. Allied Species troopers that had been stationed at the temple in an attempt for the Jedi to withdraw. Both the Jedi and Allied Species had sustained heavy casualties, but large amount of Jedi had managed to evacuate. Despite this robed bodies lay throughout the temple, many of them children. This did nothing but infuriate the Allied Species troopers who were determined that a gallon of blood be paid for each drop lost.

A Marine fired a spurt from his assault rifle causing a row of advancing clones to fall. A Grunt ran as fast as he could towards the thin line of Marines, who were trying desperately to keep the clones from advancing. "Sir," he said in a quick, high pitched voice. "All of the surviving Jedi have evacuated successfully to ships in orbit. We are to board a Phantom so that our ships may withdraw and regroup at Earth."

"You heard him," shouted the Sergeant to the rest of the Marines "Move your asses." The Marines and the Grunt ran like the fires of Hell were right behind them. The Marines shielding kept them alive as the clones fired on them, and by the time that the shields had collapsed, they were already at a safe distance. They ran out of a temple were a bright green Phantom was waiting for them. They clambered on board as fast as their limbs could carry them. If they had stopped to look around, they would have seen the last handful of defenders jumped onboard drop ships. The Marines let out a sigh of relief when the doors closed and the Phantom took off.

"How many people did we lose?" one of the Marines asked to the Elite pilot. "Out of the 2,000 Jedi stationed at the temple approximately 25% were killed another, good amount wounded. We got lost a thousand or two, and you'll be glad to hear that the clones lost about ten thousand. I guess that happens when you have time to dig in, even if it is only five minutes."

The Allied Species troopers grimaced. If there was one thing they hated, it was seeing their comrades falling in battle, particularly because they had been betrayed. As the Phantoms docked with the ships in space, they went to slipspace in order to avoid the overwhelming firepower from the Republic fleet. As the ships traveled through slipspace murmurings could be heard, as the Jedi were taking to see the Shipmaster. All of the Allied Species troopers had one thing on their minds revenge.

On the bridge of the _Glorious Victory _Ahsoka Tano and Aayla Secura both fell to their knees. Both of them were trembling uncontrollably as they were helped to their feet, Ahsoka by Aaron and Aayla by Vadmare. "What's wrong?" asked Ramore looking up from one of the terminals he had been briefly studying.

"There is a great disturbance in the force," said Aayla her voice heavy with emotion.

"So many people are dying," Ahsoka said choking slightly. Aaron choose then to wrap his arms around her and Ahsoka returned the favor. Either Aayla didn't notice or she just didn't care for she said nothing.

Grimly Vadmare looked out of the bridge. They were still in slipspace and would arrive at earth in a couple of hours. "Mark my words Palpatine," he muttered to himself. "You will not live past this month even if I have to use a NOVA bomb to kill you."

Sorry about the long update time and short length but still please tell me what you think. So the Jedi survived but took heavy casualties, action picks up again next chapter. Oh and remember when Aaron said he had a step-father? Why do I ask? No reason.


	17. Rendezvous Point Epsilon

**Chapter 17**

**Rendezvous Point Epsilon **

**A cool down chapter with a plot twist enjoy**

**Palpatine was furious. Mere hours ago clone commanders had been reporting in from all over the galaxy informing him on the progress of order 66. Needless to say rarely anything had gone to plan. Approximately 2,500 Jedi had been eliminated out of a grand total of 10,000. While those were indeed heavy casualties, approximately 75% of the order was still alive and all of them surely wanted him dead. The Jedi high council had sustained casualties, but Shaak Ti, Plo Koon, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, and Yoda had all survived. While the other members of the Jedi Council had all been killed, they had survived and they might be enough to reorganize the order. **

**The Allied Species were to blame for the low casualty rate. They had apparently learned of order 66 somehow and had prevented many of the clones from killing Jedi. They had evacuated all of the surviving Jedi to an unknown locations, most likely the Jedi and Allied Species were regrouping for a counter-attack. Palpatine had decided that it wasn't safe to remain on Coruscant anymore. The very second he had heard that the majority of the Jedi had survived, he had boarded a ship to the Mustafar system. The CIS council and forces were liabilities to him now and they would have to be eliminated. Afterwards he would lay low on Mustafar while he came up with a plan. Before he had left he had given a rousing speech to the senators and, through use of the force, had managed to form the Galactic Empire. He would say that he had evacuated for fear of another Jedi attempt on his life, after seeing his face no one would argue with him.**

**But Palpatine had a secondary reason for going to Mustafar. Before his death the Prophet of Salvation had given Palpatine a good faith gift for his assistance. Palpatine had sent it to Mustafar where experiments were being carried out on it. Salvation hadn't known very much about it, and experiments hadn't revealed very much, but Palpatine was confidante that this secret weapon of his would be enough to win the war against the Allied Species that he knew was coming.**

**Earth, homeworld of humanity. In the days of the Human-Covenant war 300 super-MAC platforms had been in orbit to defend against enemy attacks. In the last 34 years smaller defense platforms, equipped with plasma torpedoes and pulse lasers had been added. A fleet of a hundred also guarded the planet at minimum, sometimes much larger numbers were present. In addition to Earth all of these defenses also protected Luna, Earth's moon. In the years following the Human-Covenant war Luna had been therefore so that it now had the appearance of a small planet. Generators had been installed on it so that it had the same gravity output as earth. Currently approximately 500 warships were in orbit. 150 were part of the defense fleet the other 350 were ships that had evacuated to earth carrying Jedi survivors. Several Jedi council members were present including Mace Windu, Shaak Ti, Kit Fisto, and Plo Koon. Obi-Wan and Yoda had yet to arrive. The present surviving members of the council were currently in a meeting.**

"**I don't trust these Allied Species people," said Mace Windu. The and the other Council members were sitting in a poorly illuminated room onboard the **_**Steady Aim**_**, a Carrier.**

"**Who do you trust?" said Kit Fisto slightly exasperated and Windu's attitude. "If it wasn't for the Allied Species we'd be counting our survivors in two digits not four."**

"**I agree this master Fisto," said Shaak Ti. "Why do you not trust them master Windu?"**

"**It is unwise to put let your guard down in the presence of someone with superior strength." Windu replies. "The clones showed us that we can't afford to be too trusting." **

"**It sounds to me like you're being paranoid." said Plo Koon. "From what I've seen of them they deserve nothing but our trust and support. I'd be dead if it wasn't for them. My I remind so that the first thing they did in form of making contact with us was saving Ahsoka Tano's life. Frankly Windu I think you're the only one that doesn't trust the Allied Species."**

**Defeated Windu scowled quietly while Shaak Ti asked "So what are our plans for a counter attack?"**

"**I was thinking we should wait for masters Yoda and Kenobi to arrive before we decide on that," said Kit Fisto. All of the other masters nodded in agreement.**

**On the **_**Glorious Victory **_**an ill mood seem to have fallen over the ship. Nearly everyone on it was restless, the quite before a battle stretched across the entire ship making impossible for anyone to stay still for more than five minutes. Deciding to give his solders a breath of fresh air, he ordered everyone on the ship to take short leave until further notice.**

**A Phantom was currently flying towards Luna. Ramore was flying it with Aaron and Ahsoka in the passenger area. Ahsoka was sitting in Aaron's lap, while he gently stroked her Lekku. (A/N in case you were getting excited, in this story Lekku stroking equals hair stroking)** Ahsoka felt shivers of pleasure pass through her with every stroke, and she snuggled closer to him, quietly pleading for him to continue. When she did this Aaron just smiled and just kept doing what he was doing. After a minute or two of this Ahsoka said "So where are we going?"

Still stroking her Lekku Aaron said "It's a surprise." Turning to look at his helmet less face, Ahsoka gave Aaron the best puppy dog face that she could manage. Aaron caved. "We're going to see my step-father. I wanted to introduce you two." Ahsoka couldn't help but gulp in nervousness. "Don't worry I know he'll like you," said Aaron reassuringly "But there's a couple of things you need to know about him.

"Like what?" asked Ahsoka.

"Well first off, he's mute and he uses a computer to talk," Said Aaron a slightly grim look on his face "In the Human-Covenant war his unit suffered near annihilation at New Jerusalem, apparently he was so traumatized he lost his voice."

"Were you ever in a battle that traumatized you?" Ahsoka asked quietly.

Something flashed across Aaron face that was gone so quickly Ahsoka couldn't make it out. "That's a story for another day," he said gently before leaning in to kiss Ahsoka, who responded happily.

The Phantom gently landed on the face of the teraformed moon. Four decades ago, people would've run in fear at the sight of a Phantom, but now they just spared it a second of their time before going back to their business. Aaron and Ahsoka jumped out of the Phantom, with Aaron turning to face Ramore saying "I'll give you a holler when we need a pick up." Ramore nodded as he closed the Phantom doors and then flew away.

Aaron and Ahsoka were standing outside of an average middle class house. In addition of an average size yard, there was an above average garden near the front door. A variety of flowers were growing, but the patch of bright red roses stuck out among them. 'Beautiful,' Ahsoka thought as she looked at the garden. "Did you do that?" she asked pointing at the garden.

Smiling Aaron shook his head. "No that was all my step-dad. After the war he took up gardening as a habit, and as you can see, he got pretty good at it. A warning though, if ever crush his flowers, or pick them without permission, God help you."

"I'll keep that in mind," Ahsoka said trying, and failing to not smile.

Waling forward, Aaron reached out and pressed the doorbell next to the front door. After a minute the door opened and a man was revealed behind it. He appeared to be in his mid 30s but in reality he was in his late 50s. You couldn't really describe the way he looked in words, but a couple of things you could say was that he had black hair and was about 6ft 1. "Short leave Aaron?" said a mechanical voice that came from a small handheld computer in the man's hand. Aaron nodded. The man nodded and then he noticed Ahsoka. "Let me guess," he typed "This is Ahsoka Tano, the Jedi from the republic that you've been serving with?"

Aaron smiled "Dare's been keeping you up to date hasn't she?" he said.

The man nodded "It helps to have someone inside ONI that's friendly with you," he typed. "Well come on in." The man walked back into his house, and Ahsoka and Aaron followed. He led them into the living room, where he sat down in an armchair, while Aaron and Ahsoka sat on the couch opposite him.

"Um Dad, listen I've got be honest with you, Ahsoka and I...we," Ahsoka gripped Aaron gripped Aaron's and at this point and understanding flooding the face of Aaron's stepfather.

"Are together?" he typed relieving the tension. Aaron and Ahsoka nodded. Looking Ahsoka directly in the eye Aaron's stepfather typed "Do you love my boy?"

"More than anyone else I've ever met." Ahsoka replied meeting his gaze.

Aaron's stepfather stared at Ahsoka for a few more seconds, before a smile broke across his face. "I believe you," he typed "Welcome to the family."

Purely out of joy, Ahsoka leaning forward and gave Aaron's stepfather a brief hug before leaning back and saying "I'm glad you approve Mr. Colton."

The man sitting across from her laughed. "No, No Colton isn't my family name, just Aaron's. Call me what my old squad mates used to call me. Call me The Rookie."

Yup The Rookie from Halo 3 ODST is Aaron's stepfather. Well please review and tell me what you think of this turn of events.


	18. Preparing for the Storm

Chapter 18

Preparing for the Storm

Ahsoka lifted her head upwards as she pressed an ice cold glass to her lips. The black liquid in it trickled down her throat, burning it slightly. As she lowered the glass she looked at it. It was some sort of Milky Way Galaxy Human drink called Coca Cola. When she had first tasted it, shortly after she had gone onboard the _Glorious Victory, _she had barely been able to stand it. Now she founding herself thinking rather fondly of the drink. "Must be an acquired taste," she muttered to herself.

She was standing alone in the Rookie's living room, Aaron having gone to have a brief look around town, now that he was back, and his stepfather having stepped out of the room for a minute. It was then that she noticed a small framed picture on a small table next to the couch. Looking more closely at it she saw that it was a picture of a six person ODST squad. One of them she recognized as the Rookie, but she couldn't recognize the others, four men and one woman.

"That's my old squad," the Rookie typed on his tiny handheld computer as he walked back into the room. That's Edward Buck," he said pointing to one of the men. "He married her, Veronica Dare," he pointed to the woman. "I swear the arguing they do you think they'd have had a divorce but… anyway. Dare works at ONI and is nice enough to give me tabs about what's going on, though mostly I just ask about Aaron. Buck is a drill sergeant right now, and from what I heard half of the new ODST recruits get into the pods just to get away from him. That's Michael 'Mickey' Crespo," he typed pointed at another man. "He was the demo-man slash pilot, he got himself a job at an air transit station. That's Taylor 'Dutch' Miles, that heavy weapons man, he went back to Mars after the war and apart from that I really don't know anything. And last and arguably least Kojo 'Romeo' Agu sniper and self proclaimed ladies man, but the way everyone else saw it he couldn't get a girl to save his life. He was a bit of an ass to everyone an last I heard he was in some trouble with the authorities. Here's my advice if you ever run into them, Dutch and Mickey are ok, don't get on Buck and Dare's bad side, and just stay away from Romeo, I wouldn't put it past him to hit on you."

Ahsoka smiled "I'll keep that in mind," she said.

The survivors of the Jedi council, including the recently arrived Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, had been transferred from the _Steady Aim _to the _Glorious Victory_ due to the fact that it had deemed that they would be safer there. With Vadmare Katar's track record it was hard to argue this. They were currently having another meeting with the Fleet master himself.

"We cannot make our move yet," said Shaak Ti "Only a quarter of our number have arrived and we are still severely disorganized."

"The longer we wait the longer Palpatine has to hide, dig in, mount an assault, or do whatever it is he's planning," said Windu impatiently.

"And where would you recommend we start?" growled Vadmare Katar. "Should we just launch an all out assault on Coruscant when we're not sure if he's there anymore? I don't know how you do things Windu, but I have no intent of putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of troops at risk when I don't even know if the mission is worthwhile."

"He has a fair point you know Windu," said Plo Koon.

"There are some situations where men need to die in war," said Windu hotly "You can't save everyone."

"But I will save as many as I can," said Vadmare coldly "I wouldn't expect you understand Windu. For three years you've been using these clones as troops. Well let me tell you something, every single person in the Allied Species didn't come from a lab, they came from the womb. Their lives are irreplaceable, and I don't care if you thought your clones were, by my troops are not expendable. Don't forget it."

Before Windu could reply a beeping noise came from Obi-Wan's belt. Pulling off his holographic projector Obi-Wan activated it and a hologram of Anakin appeared. "Finally," said Anakin "Sorry master, I was have reported sooner but I had to avoid clone patrols."

"Anakin," said Obi-Wan "Chancellor Palpatine…"

"Is a Sith I know," said Anakin "He…"

"HE'S A WHAT?!" shouted every Jedi in the room.

"Yeah he's the Sith lord we've been looking for," said Anakin.

"Well that explains a lot," said Kit Fisto grimly.

"Yeah well anyway," said Anakin "That's why I contacted you. I overheard some clones talking, Palpatine is heading to the Mustafar system."

"Hide in the Outer Rim he would," said Yoda in a stony voice.

"There's something else," said Anakin. "I heard the clones talking about something else, that Palpatine had an ace up his sleeve in case order 66 didn't work, but I couldn't hear what it was. Anyway, I managed to get to my star fighter and find and Allies Species ship, I should arrive at Earth in about three hours."

"See you then," said Obi-Wan deactivating his projector.

Windu glanced at Vadmare who said "We will strike when, and only when, we have amassed such a sufficient force." After that he put his hand to his com unit and spoke into the Battle-Net. Short leave was going to have to end early.

Aaron had just gotten back from looking around the town and was talking with Ahsoka when a com single came through. "Attention all _Glorious Victory _crew members we are preparing for a massive assault and short leave is officially over please return to the ship ASAP.

Aaron sighed as he transmission ended. "Ramore," he said as he activated his communications "We're going to need that pick up."

"I heard it too," Ramore replied "I'll be there in a minute."

"Well," he said looking at Ahsoka "Looks like we're being shipped out again." Ahsoka smiled sadly. "Dad!" Aaron yelled "We just got recalled."

"Perfect timing," came the mechanical voice of the Rookie's computer "I just finished." The Rookie walked in at this point. It took Aaron and Ahsoka a few seconds to realize that he was wearing shielded ODST armor. "I received genetic augmentations before I retired," he typed. "I'm coming with you two." both Ahsoka and Aaron smiled and nodded. "By the way," he typed at a much lower volume as Ahsoka walked ahead. "When you get around to doing 'it' make sure you use a condom."

Aaron grinned and said "I would be she's actually pretty keen on the idea of being a mother."

"Really?" said the Rookie in an interested voice "That's more than Dare could ever say."

As the group of three walked outside a Phantom touched down the doors opening. In addition to Ramore Aayla Secure had ridden the Phantom down as well. "Thought I'd have a quick look at the surface before we all march off to hell," she said. "Who are you?" she asked pointing at the Rookie.

"Aaron's stepfather," he typed.

Aayla smiled "Quite a stepson you have there," she said as they clambered onto the Phantom.

"I know," he typed as the doors closed.

Kinda short but in reality this chapter is just setting up for the main showdown which I intend on making awesome, so please review as always.


	19. Hell Breaks Loose

Chapter 19

Hell Breaks Loose

The Glorious Victory was at slipspace, along with 499 other Allied Species warships. Warships hadn't been so heavily clustered in years for as the Rookie "Said" "The last time I saw this many warships it was the Second Battle of Earth." Drop ships were loading to the brim ready to be launched at a seconds notice. Every single last HEV pod was loaded as well, with Core sharing a pod with the Rookie. Aayla Secura herself found herself sitting in a HIV pod waiting to be deployed.

"Alright," said Vadmare Katar over the Battle-Net. "Thanks to Skywalker's information we know that Palpatine is on Mustafar, and from he heard he has a fleet of hundreds. He has troops stationed across the entire planet, from which the native population has been forcibly removed. We will be launching a planet wide invasion while the Jedi attempt to pinpoint Palpatine's location. Once they have it they will attack and eliminate him. All I ask of you is that you fight with everything that you have, and try to come back alive. If you do fall your names will be remembered in legend as the brave men and women who gave their lives to give a galaxy a second chance. What is the human term? Ah yes. URA!"

"URA!" echoed across the entire armada shouted mainly by Marines and ODSTs with some other species shouting in and even a Jedi or two getting in on it. "Alright," said Ramore across the Battle-Net to Ahsoka, Aayla, Aaron the Rookie, and Core "Just stick together take out anything of significance and we'll get out of this just fine."

Palpatine, who was now referring to himself as Darth Sidious, was currently standing in the former CIS control room, which was now filled with corpses. Sidious had seen no reason to allow the CIS to live, as odds are they would only get in the way. In addition that he had deactivated the droid armies stationed throughout the galaxy. Now he had to plan on how to eliminate the remaining Jedi, and deal with the Allied Species. Without warning alarms blared throughout the base. Looking at a nearby consol Sidious saw that a massive Allied Species armada had just entered the system and was now engaging his defensive fleet of 700 warships. "Hmmm," he said to himself. "The Jedi wouldn't just sit back and watch from a safe distance while others avenge the deaths of their fallen. Most likely the survivors of the Jedi council will come to face me personally." a crooked smiled played across Sidious' face. "The fools," he said to himself before he began to cackle.

The Glorious Victory blew a hole in a republic ship, with a barrage of plasma torpedoes, as it made it's way to Mustafar. As it reached it, it released every single HEV pod and Phantom that it had, and then turned back resume the fighting. The HEV pods fell towards the planet's surface, some of them spreading out in order to take as much territory as possible. Five HEV pods landed relatively close together. The doors opened and two Humans, a Sangheili, a Togruta, a Twi'lek, and a Forerunner A.I. exited. The Rookie held a SMG in his hand and a Spartan Accelerator on his back. The Spartan Accelerator was the replacement for the Spartan Laser. It had twice the battery capacity, and instead of a chemical laser, it was a particle accelerator. The Spartan Accelerator produced a bright blue beam that did much more damage than the Spartan Laser.

"Over there," said Aayla pointing to a facility around half a klick **(A/N Klick= Kilometer)** away from them. The group dashed towards the facility, the Allied Species troopers shooting the handful of clone sentries present. A Spartan Accelerator blast smashed the front of the facility, leaving a gaping hole. They sprinted inside, the two Jedi taking the lead. The clones fell in a blur of green and blue. They hallway that they were in moved downwards until they found themselves outside a blast door.

"Let me see what I can do," said Core. He floated to a consol next to the blast door. A blue beam shot from his eye as he connected himself to the consol. "Let me see that goes here and this goes over there and…done," said Core to himself.

The blast door opened to reveal three clones at various terminals. Upon seeing them entering, they instinctively reached for their blasters. Despite their movements a hail of superheated bullets killed one, a spurt of plasma another, and a concentrated beam from Core killed the third.

The room that they had stepped into appeared to be some sort of observation room. Some sort of reinforced plastic was separating the observation from with that of a very large room filled with large metal pods of various sizes. The pods varied in size from ones that were about dog size to ones that a hunter could fit into comfortably. "What the heck do you suppose they were doing down here?" asked Aaron.

"No idea," said Aayla "But we have no idea what's in those pods so until we find out we should leave them alone.

"Judging by their design," said Ramore "They're Cryo-stasis pods, so safe to say that whatever is in them is definitely hostile, to the clones at least."

Darth Sidious stood on a landing platform watching as a Phantom approached. Smiling to himself he reached out a hand and closed it, just as the Phantom began to hover over the platform. The Phantom exploded. But before the phantoms destruction, seven figures jumped out of the Phantom, all of them igniting lightsabers, four blue, two green, and one purple. Shaak Ti, Mace Windu, Plo Koon, Kit Fisto, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda all faced him. Sidious cackled as he ignited his own red lightsaber. "Well, well," he said "The remnants of the Jedi council have come all the way out here to see me. I'm touched."

"Consider you next words wisely Palpatine, for you shall not live long enough to mutter many more," said Windu in a low, dangerous voice.

"Please," said Sidious "Call me Sidious, Darth Sidious. And Anakin so good to see you among the living again. The offer is still open you know." As a response to this Anakin charged at Sidious swinging a horizontal slash. Sidious had been expecting this, and blocked the swipe delivering a kick to Anakin's chest as well. With inhuman swiftness, Sidious shot a burst of lighting at Kit Fisto, who collapsed under the strain. He then brought his lightsaber back to block slices from both Shaak Ti, and Plo Koon. With one hand he released lighting at Shaak Ti, who was thrown back writhing in pain, and advanced on Plo Koon. Sidious made several vicious swipes at Plo Koon and jumped over him when Windu attempted to stab Sidious from behind. Plo Koon blocked a swipe that Sidious threw at him in midair and attempted to catch Sidious off guard when he landed. Sidious released a concentrated blast off force lighting that sent Plo Koon flying backwards, electricity coursing through his body.

Back in the unknown facility Ahsoka just noticed another door. "Wonder what's in here?" she muttered as he opened the door, her lightsaber still ignited. The door opened to reveal a poorly lit, 6 foot by 6 foot cell with a figure lying in the middle.

"Gah, back for more? Well fine, give me your best shot!" shouted the figure as it sprung to it's feet it's fists up.

Ahsoka raised her lightsaber in preparation to fight, when she realized that she recognized the voice. "Rex?" she said.

"Ahsoka?" said the clone lowering his guard and stepping forward slightly into the light. His face had the look of someone who just lost a boxing match, he had several bruises, a gash or two, and a black right eye.

"What did you do to end up in here," Ahsoka asked still weary of Rex. She could still recall how quickly Bly had shot her.

"More like what I didn't do," said Rex. "Apparently when the Chancellor tells you to kill your general and you don't do it, apparently the rest of your men turn you in."

"You didn't follow order 66?" asked Ahsoka cautiously.

"No I didn't," said Rex. He added almost as an afterthought "I'm glad to see that your still alive and well."

Ahsoka had been looking at him in the eyes the whole conversation, and she was now convinced that the clone was telling the truth. Deactivated her lightsaber and smiling, she said "I'm glad your still on our side."

"So am I," said Rex who was also smiling.

"Hey guys!" Ahsoka shouted.

"Yeah?" said Aaron, sticking his head up from the terminal that he had been unsuccessfully trying to access.

"Not all of the clones followed Order 66," said Ahsoka as Rex walked into view.

Aaron sighed as he got up and began to walk towards Rex, picking up a blaster from one of the fallen clones along the way. "I gotta say," he said "After the order I thought that all of the clones were just mindless puppets that did what they were told without question." He reached Rex and held out the blaster to him "Thanks for proving me wrong," he said. Rex just smiled as he took the blaster. "Why did they drag you down here anyway?"

Rex frowned "I'm not sure if I really want to know. The mentioned about feeding me to something."

Aaron groaned "That settles it those pods are staying closed."

Windu raised his lightsaber in a guard as he, Kenobi, Skywalker, and Yoda attempted to surround him. Yoda leaped over Sidious making several quick slashes that Sidious quickly blocked, only to turn around and block a slash from Obi-Wan. Sidious then concentrated the force at let out a force repulse, that was rather weak due to the insignificant time that he had to prepare it. It didn't serve much purpose then to block the assaulting Jedi back. Deciding that it would be wise to avoid being boxed in, Sidious raising his hand, causing a landing pad above the one that he was one to fall towards the feebly stirring Shaak Ti. Abandoning the assault of Sidious, Yoda turned all of his attention to stop the platform from falling and forcing it to float in midair. Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, Sidious darted towards Windu and, with a quick slash, removed his arm. Sidious executed a back flip jumped off the platform and landing on a flower one. Anakin and Obi-Wan quickly jumped down after him.

Obi-Wan and Anakin attacked Sidious from both sides, yet he was able to block the assault. Sidious forced pushed Anakin, then concentrated on Obi-Wan. A particularly vicious strike from Sidious causing Obi-Wan to fall backward, his lightsaber falling out of his hand. Laughing in triumph Sidious raised his lightsaber to deliver the final blow. Only to have a blue lightsaber erupt out of his chest. "Any last words Sidious?" asked Anakin as he pulled his lightsaber out of Sidious.

As Sidious fell to his knees he rasped "If I die then so shall the rest of the galaxy," and he pressed a button on a collar on his wrist, that had been hidden by his robes. Then Darth Sidious of the Sith fell to the ground, dead.

There was a strange humming noise back in the strange facility. The wall separating the observation room and the room with the pods was sliding into the floor. What's more the pods were expelling large amounts of mist and were opening. Lightsabers ignited and firearms were raised at the know open metal coffins. For a few seconds were nothing happened. Then a massive figure came charging out of one of the largest pods and sent Aaron flying with a massive swipe. Before it could make another move to harm the ODST Ahsoka jumped forward and Vertically cut the figure in half. Running towards him Ahsoka quickly helped Aaron up. Ramore moved forward to study the corpse. Looking at it closely Ramore said every single foul word in his native tongue that he could think of. The figure was enormous yellow, and had some sort of strange red feelers coming out of what appeared to be it's mouth.

The silence was broken by Core. "The parasite. It…It lives.

Please tell me what you thought and review. To quote the Arbiter "We trade one villain for another"


	20. Evil Never Dies

Chapter 20

Evil Never Dies

Ramore stared at the remains of the Tank Form lost for words. "We're in trouble if they have Pure Forms," he said at last. "And odds are this isn't the only facility on this planet with the Flood.

"Excuse me," said Rex "But what the hell are Flood?" As he said this, a low rattling noise came from the remaining pods.

"Now's not really the time," said Aaron as another Pure Form rushed out of one of the pods.

"Hard to believe that he's really dead," said Anakin looking at the corpse of Sidious. He and Obi-Wan had taken the corpse back to the upper platform. Obi-Wan and Yoda were tending to the other wounded masters. Anakin was looking at Sidious' body when he heard a beeping noise coming from it. Upon closing examination, Anakin saw that it was coming from a holographic projector attached to Sidious belt. hesitantly Anakin unclipped the projector and activated it.

A hologram of Sidious appeared. "If you are watching this Anakin," said the hologram "then it means that I underestimated you in battle and paid dearly for it." Anakin smiled slightly at these words. "It also means that you and the rest of the galaxy are doomed to a fate worse than death." Several months ago an alien who called himself the Prophet of Salvation came to see me to ask for my help. He told me about a weapon called Halo that would permanently cripple the Allied Species putting them out of the war. Unfortunately, you and your very irritating friends prevented that from happening, but one thing came out of that deal that I will use to seal your fate. You see as a good faith payment Salvation gave me something he captured while escaping from a ship called _High Charity_. A single Flood Infection Form."

Anakin frowned. 'Flood?' he thought. Then something came back to him. Ahsoka had mentioned them once, something about them being a parasitic life form?

"Your Allied Species friends may have already told you but in case they didn't let me enlighten you," continued the hologram. "The Flood are a parasitic species, they infect their host taking complete control of their body and learning everything that the host knows. They reproduce at an alarming rate, evolving rapidly, soon being able to assume combat forms without the use of a host. They spread without limit, assimilating everything in their path, until they are the only ones left standing. That is what the Flood is. I took that one Infection Form, and manipulated certain elements so that it would reproduce faster. I fed the Flood clones, gave them nutrients, gave them what they needed to thrive. I now have facilities filled with them all over the planet and I have just released them all." The hologram threw it's head back to laugh at this point. "Farewell Anakin, my one regret is that I will not be there to watch the Jedi fall to the Flood," and the hologram shut down.

The orbital battle between the fleets was still going on strong. Both sides were taking casualties, and neither was letting up. Vadmare Katar was barking orders left and right. The _Glorious Victory _had taken quite a few hits but her shields had yet to collapse. A nearby frigate exploded and Katar order a barrage of pulse lasers on the ship that had just destroyed it. The Empire ship quickly burst into flames.

Vadmare wanted to tear his com unit out of his helmet when it began to beep. "WHAT?!" he shouted into it "I'm a little busy right now!"

"Palpatine is dead," said Anakin.

"Great," said Vadmare sarcastically "Is that all? Because I really need to get back to keeping my ship in one piece!" he said hotly.

"Yes," said Anakin "Palpatine released something called the Flood, I'm not sure what they are but from what he said about them they seem pretty…"

"WHAT?!" shouted Vadmare. "The Flood?"

As if to prove the point another contact joined the conversation. "Fleetmaster!" shouted Ramore into the Battle-Net over the sounds of various weapons. "We have engaged the Flood, the clones seemed to have been experimenting with them down here!"

"Another thing," said Anakin hurriedly "Palpatine said he had labs with them stationed all over the planet, and that he released them all."

"ALL OVER THE PLANET?!" Vadmare roared into the Battle-Net. "All ground units!" he ordered into the Battle-Net "evacuate back to the fleet, abandon all ground operations. There is a Flood infection on Mustafar!"

Back in the lab things were starting to cool down. The combined firepower from Core, and the other soldiers, as well as Ahsoka's and Aayla's swordsmanship were starting to take their toll on the Flood. They had fallen back to the far side of them room and were remaining in front of the door holding their position there, with the exception of when one of the Jedi darted forward to swiftly execute a slash.

A tiny Infection Form scuttled forward leaping at one of the clones that had been killed earlier huge growths began to sprout from his upper body and tentacles sprouted to replace his right arm. The clone Combat Form quickly sprung to it's feet. It reached down to retrieve it's blaster and opened fire, only to find it's shots deflected back at him by Ahsoka. A group of Ranger forms took place a distance away from the group and began to open fire. Ramore bounded forward at them, both energy swords activated, and dispatched all of them with quick yet brutal strikes. After Rex shot a retreating Stalker Form, and Core fried a charging Tank Form, it became apparent that no more Flood in the room were alive. "Everyone alright?" asked Aaron. Everyone nodded, grunted, or gave some way of saying yes. "Ok," he said turning to face Core. "Core you're the expert on dealing with the Flood, and ideas?"

"One," said Core "But I must discuss it with Shipmaster Katar first."

"Before you contact him," said Rex "Any chance we could go outside first? I feel a little uncomfortable around these things, I feel like they're going to jump back up at any minute." Everyone felt that Rex had a point, so they vacated the room and headed back outside.

Three Phantoms had landed on the platform where the battle with Sidious had taken place. The wounded Jedi were being loading onto the drop ships, medics onboard tending to them. "So now what?" asked Obi-Wan, as a Brute Captain gazed through the scope of his beam rifle at areas were Flood make appear from.

"We're evacuating," said the Brute not looking away from his scope "Fleet master gave the order, we can't defeat the Flood via ground forces."

"What do you mean?" asked Anakin.

The Captain gave an annoyed sigh "Because if things go wrong we may end up making them stronger instead of weaker. Much safer to destroy them from a distance."

"Do that how we?" said Yoda who was already standing in a Phantom.

"We're still working on that" said the Captain. The Captain, Anakin, and Obi-Wan climbed onboard the Phantoms as the doors closed behind them. That Phantoms took off each of them activating their active camo, disappearing as they flew towards the sky.

As they got outside Aaron and Ramore listened to the Battle-Net as Core contacted Vadmare. They regretted their decision immediately as they heard the chatter coming from the Battle-Net. "This is Staff Sergeant Phillip Rogers, half of my squad is down, and the Flood are closing in on…GAH! GET IT OFF! GET IF OFF!"

Then they heard a female voice "Lieutenant Sarah Rogers here, my forces are taking heavy loses…oh God they got George, SHOOT HIM SHOOT HIM!"

Then a Grunt's panicked voice " Gah! You aren't going to get me! You aren't going to get me!" he shouted as what founded like a Fuel Rod Gun could be heard. The next voice wasn't saying anything but sounded like an Elite choking to death on its own blood.

Aaron and Ramore shut off their communications, unable to take it anymore. "What?" asked Ahsoka noticing the look on Ramore's face, Aaron's helmet was still polarized.

"You don't want to know," said Aaron.

"Yes I know it's extreme, but this is an extreme situation and we don't have many other options. Yes, Glassing will most likely be too slow, a Flood might be able to find a ship and escape before you are done. Alright, but we need to wait for evacuations to be completed. Very well, I have fought along side these people and I know that they are more than capable of doing it."

Core gave a sigh as he disconnected himself from the Battle-Net and turned to face the others. "Well," he said "We've got our work cut out for us, we need to…"

But before he could continues Aaron gave out a cry of pain and fell to his knees. He wasn't the only one, Ahsoka had also fallen to one knee, as well as Ramore and the Rookie. Rex gripped his head in his hands, and Aayla fell to all fours panting heavily. They didn't know it, but every single person that wasn't connected to the Flood was going through similar sensations.

Through out all of the pain that every single person heard a deep gutural voice within their head. _"Once Again I LIVE!" _exclaimed the voice. _"Know this I will consume every single last being in this galaxy and my mine. None will be spared as you all become one with me. For most the pain will be short, then your mind shall become one with mine. But children of my enemy, you will know PAIN!"_

Shakily everyone got to their feet. "What," said Rex "The hell was that?"

"A Gravemind," said Ramore "When a sufficient mass is reached, a Gravemind is formed and it acts as a hive mind for the Flood."

"Meaning?" said Rex.

"Meaning things just got worse, if that was even possible," said Aaron.

"Then it is imperative that we act quickly," said Core "The fleet master has approved of my plan, we are going to use a NOVA bomb,"

Aaron, Ramore, and the Rookie's eyes widened, Ahsoka said "Well I guess there's no other way," while Aayla and Rex looked rather confused.

"A NOVA bomb?" said Aayla in a confused voice.

"Long story short it's a planet killer," the Rookie typed into his computer, which he had placed in a slot on the left underarm of his armor.

"The rest of the invasion of the invasion force is going to withdraw, but we're going to stay behind to secure an LZ. Once we get all of our troops off, a Phantom is going to fly down, plant the bomb, then take us back to the main ship. After that we get the hell out of this system. Now then I think we should…" but whatever Core thought they should do they never found out, for an unseen force sent him flying several yards where he landed on the ground. The Rookie went flying next, with Aaron sharing his plight.

"There!" shouted Ramore as he fired his carbine at a small hill. A three Flood Combat Forms were standing on top of it their hands outstretched. But before Ramore's shots connected, each of the Combat Forms produced a lightsaber and deflected them. Ahsoka and Aayla ignited their own lightsabers for they knew what had happened. Some of their fellow Jedi had been infected by the Flood.

Jedi Combat Forms, I've been thinking about that for a couple of days now, it should be fun to work with. Well please review.


	21. Fallen Warriors

Chapter 21

Fallen Warriors

Yeah I know it's been awhile since I updated sorry, but I do have other things to do besides writing (Video games relaxing etc) hey cut me a break some people go months without updating, I update two three times per week. Anyway enjoy.

Ahsoka and Aayla sized up their opposition. The three Jedi Flood Combat Forms clearly still had the ability to use the force, and jugging how they had deflected Ramore's shots, some of their swordplay skills. There were three of them, two of them with blue lightsabers and the one in the middle had a green one. The one with a green lightsaber pointed it forward letting out a roar that sounded like a war cry. From behind the combat forms came many more flood. Pure Forms, Combat Forms, Carrier Forms, Infection Forms all of them with the intent of kill/infecting them. The Jedi Combat Forms seemed to be acting as generals, for they seemed to be brandishing their arms with the advancing Flood advancing where they pointed.

Ramore and Rex raised their weapons again and fired at the Jedi Combat forms. The one with the green lightsaber deflected his shots, then extended it's hand. They flew back to where the Rookie, Aaron, and Core had landed. The Combat Form with the green lightsaber pointed it at the larger group, and the other Flood charged at them, completely ignoring Ahsoka and Aayla. Aayla darted forward, using the force to increase her speed, and slashed at one of the Jedi Combat Forms with a blue lightsaber. She was so fast that the Combat collapsed dead before it had even began to retaliate. She brought her lightsaber back and swung it at the Combat Form with a green lightsaber. This time, the Combat Form blocked the attack, and retaliated by shooting lighting out of its left hand. Aayla was barely able to block the blast in time. 'It seems that these Flood things are not afraid to use the dark side of the force,' Aayla thought as she continued to duel.

Ahsoka had mimicked Aayla moved and charged at the Combat Form on the left. However, Aayla had charged a few seconds earlier, so the Combat forms was able to predict her moves. It brought it's lightsaber up to meet hers and they both clashed. The Jedi Combat forms fought with the skill and speed of a Jedi and with the aggressive tendencies of a Sith, making quite an aggressive combo. The Combat Form executed a particularly violent stab, as Ahsoka staffed to the left to avoid it. Swinging her lightsaber she severed one of the tentacles that acted as the Combat forms primary arm. The Combat Form roared in pain as it swung it's lightsaber at Ahsoka, only to be blocked.

While Ahsoka and Aayla were dueling the Jedi combat forms, the others were busy fighting the mob of Flood. Ramore's carbine was low on ammunition, so was had switched to his energy swords, and was viciously hacking away at any Flood that came to close to him. Guns and blasters were blazing as the Flood were coming at them from every single way that was possible. Rex proved his combat experience by taking down a row of Marine Combat Forms, with several well placed shots. The rookie blasted through a row of Pure Forms with his Spartan Accelerator, before switching to his SMG. Aaron had his fingers jammed down on both of his SMGs and was spraying every single Flood that he could see. But Core was easily going the most damage, with his energy weapon that rivaled the destructiveness of the Spartan Accelerator. The Flood were starting to thin out, due to heavy casualties, but there was still more than enough to keep the five of them busy.

Ahsoka and Aayla were still fiercely dueling the Jedi Combat Forms. The duels had been going on for so long that Ahsoka and Aayla were beginning to fell signs of fatigue while the Combat Forms showed no signs of slowing down. In an act of desperation Ahsoka swung a swipe and her opponent's leg, and was surprised to find that her blow connected. The leg was completely severed, and as the Combat Form fell to the ground, Ahsoka didn't hesitate to drive her lightsaber through where she presumed the heart was. The Combat Form ceased to move. Pulling her lightsaber out of the Combat Form, Ahsoka charged the Combat Form that Aayla was dueling just as Aayla was able to bypass its guard. Their lightsabers both pierced the Combat form at the same time. The pulled them out.

Ramore slashed an Elite Combat Form in half, while Rex gunned down a Brute combat Form. Wheeling around looking for more opponents the group realized that all of the Flood that had charged at them were dead. Core was about to say something when his com unit went off. "Core," Vadmare said through the Battle-Net "evacuation had progressed far enough for us to deploy the NOVA bomb. Do you have a secure LZ?"

"Well it wasn't easy but, yeah we got one." said Core in a slightly tired voice. "Just get the bomb down here so we can destroy the Flood."

"Understood," said Vadmare as the connection was severed.

"NOVA bomb's on the way," said to the rest of the group before he looked up to the heavens looking for Phantoms.

Vadmare sighed as he brought he hand away from his com unit. After a brutal couple of hours the orbital battle was finally over. The Empire's fleet lay in ruins, every last warship had been destroyed. Despite the fact that they had won, the Allied Species were hurting. A quarter of their own fleet had been wiped out, with many other ships sustaining heavy damage and casualties. From what he had heard the landing forces had also taken heavy casualties. The evacuations were nearly complete but a lot less people were coming on then that had gone off. It was enough to make Vadmare Katar feel very…tired. Still now was not the time to rest. Putting his hand to his com unit again he said "Phantom crews you are cleared for takeoff."

Back on Mustafar Ramore had laded one of his last power cells into his carbine, and was scanning the horizon through with the Rookie scanning with his Spartan Accelerator in the opposite direction.

Ahsoka and Aaron were talking while starring at the horizon. "Looking at it from this point of view," said Ahsoka staring at the sunset "I almost feel bad that we're fighting to destroy this planet."

"Destroying it is a preferable alternative than leaving it to be defiling by the Flood," said Aaron. "I read reports on the Flood that the breed until they complete cover the planet. Besides look at it this way, the native were forced off of the planet by Palpatine, our forces are being evacuated, the NOVA bomb isn't going to hurt anyone except the Flood."

Ahsoka smiled at this "Thanks," she said playfully punching Aaron on the arm. Normally she would've hugged him, but with Rex, and Aayla around if this was a smart move or not was debatable.

As a matter those two were currently talking. "So Bly was going to follow the order?" said Rex. Aayla silently nodded. Rex sighed "I though that he was smarter than that. Well I'm not going to say that I'm that I'm sorry that he's gone. If he really wanted what was best for the Republic he would have stopped and thought about what he was doing for a couple of seconds."

Aayla sighed 'Still, he did do a lot of good I'm having a hard time looking at him in a bad light."

"Palpatine is to blame here I guess," said Rex "Fortunately he's gone,"

Aayla allowed herself a small smile "That he is."

"Phantoms!" Ramore shouted. Looking up, the group saw three Phantoms descending, with one a ways behind the other two. The two Phantoms landed, clearly meant for transporting them off the planet. Aaron, Ramore, and Ahsoka climbed onto one, while Aayla, the Rookie, Rex, and Core boarded the other one. The Phantoms began to life off the ground as the third Phantom, the one carrying the NOVA bomb, approached the ground.

"_NO!" _a telepathic voice roared _"I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED AGAIN!"_ Enormous tentacles burst out of the ground, one of them swatting the Phantom carrying the NOVA bomb to the ground. The Drop ship rolled over several times, killing everyone onboard, but not setting off the bomb. _"ALL OF YOU SHALL KNOW PAIN THAT YOU HAVE NOT EVEN EXPERIENCED IN YOUR DARKEST NIGHTMARES," _the Gravemind roared as it continued to extract it's body from the earth. In size it seemed to be somewhere in between where it had been on Instillation 05 and Instillation 00.

"Damnit," Aaron swore under his voice.

"Well we can't just stand around!" the Rookie typed on his computer with the volume set to max. "Let's go get that damned bomb!"

The stage is set, where will this go, come back in a couple of days and find out.


	22. Grand Finale

Chapter 22

Grand Finale

'Ok,' thought Aaron 'Flood are running wild all over the planet, they could get off the planet and spread their infection any minute, and there's a Gravemind between us and the only way to stop them. Yeah, we aren't exactly doing well. He glanced at Ahsoka out of the corner of his eye. 'Maybe I should…now's not the time to be thinking about that. Think about it when we get off this dammed planet.

"Ok," said Rex onboard the other Phantom "Anyone got an idea?"

"The Gravemind has reached a mass sufficient enough so that the weapons we currently posses will be unable to kill it." said Core. "Most likely they will only be able to damage and temporarily disable it at most. The NOVA bomb has been rigged so that once it has been activated we won't be able to stop it. So once we activated we have ten minutes to fall back before this planet becomes dust.

"We have more firepower than the others," The Rookie hastily typed into his computer. "I say we get the Gravemind attention while they go for the bomb."

"Can do," said Aayla as she ignited her lightsaber. Using the Force she threw it out of the Phantom and guided so that cut off a portion of one of the Gravemind's tentacles Roaring in anger the Gravemind made a swipe at the Phantom which barely dodged in time.

"Next time your going to do something like that!" shouted the Human pilot "Give me a heads up!"

"Shut up and keep flying!" retorted The Rookie "That's no way to talk to a lady**." (A/N I'm not doing a RookiexAayla in case you were getting excited)**

"Aaron, Ramore!" Core shouted into the Battle-Net "We're going to get the Gravemind's attention. You guys activate the NOVA bomb."

"Got it!" two voices replied.

"Take us down to the crashed Phantom!" said Ramore to the Elite pilot "we're going after the NOVA bomb."

The pilot began to hastily descent to the slightly smoking remains of the Phantom. While they were descending, they noticed the other Phantom firing on the Gravemind with the various weapons that they had. A bright blue beam from the Spartan Accelerator burst out of the ship, followed immediately by a beam from Core. The Phantom touched down and the three passengers jumped off, and dashed towards the down Phantom. As they disembarked the Phantom took off almost immediately.

Ahsoka reached it first and cut the doors open with her lightsaber. The cut door freely fell inside of the ship. Rushing inside Ahsoka used all of her self control to not shriek. When the Phantom had crashed it had taken an obvious toll on the passengers. Blood painted the inside of the phantom, red, purple and blue all mixed together to create a very unpleasant shade. She shook her head as Aaron, and Ramore entered the downed ship. "Mourn later not now,"

she muttered to herself.

A large black sphere with a blank counter was located at the far side of the wreck. Approaching it Ramore punched in a complicated series of codes. Afterwards a pale female voice uttered from the bomb saying "Are you sure?" while a small hatch opened revealing a large red button. Ramore pushed it. Immediately the counter came to life. **10:00 9:59 9:58. **

"Let's get out of here!" Ramore shouted as the ran out of the Phantom wreck. As they exited the wreck the Phantom they had arrived in began to descend towards them. It got halfway there. One of the Gravemind's tentacles smashed the Phantom in half. There was a purple explosion, and the scorched pieces of the drop ship fell to the earth.

"Well shit," Aaron said as pieces of scrap metal hit the ground not too far away.

"We need a pickup!" Ramore shouted into his headset "Preferably before the NOVA goes off."

"Easier said than done," Core replied "But we'll see what we can do."

"Yeah," said Aaron who had just thrown himself to the side to avoid a swipe from a tentacle "Could you hurry?"

Back on the Phantom Core was shouting at the pilot "Bring us down, we've got people down there that need to be evacuated."

"Easier said than done!" the pilot roared over the sound of Rex firing the Phantom's plasma turret at the Gravemind. "How exactly I'm I supposed to…" but he never finished that sentence, for at that moment the Gravemind struck the Phantom. The drop ship went whizzing downward to meet the ground skidding along the ground until it finally came of a stop.

"Everyone alright?" shouted Rex.

"Pilot's dead!" came the mechanical voice of the Rookie, who was leaning into the cockpit.

There was the sound of boot on ground, and Aaron, Ramore burst into the Phantom.

"Everyone ok?" asked Aaron

"Mostly," said Aayla as the Rookie pulled the dead body of the pilot out of the cock pit.

"Move over." said Ramore as he slipped through the rest of the passengers, and entered the cockpit. "The Phantom took some damage in the crash," Ramore called out of the cockpit. "Your going have to keep the Gravemind off of me while I take it up, otherwise we'll share the same fate as this planet."

The Phantom whirred back to life and began to lift off of the ground. Everyone in the Phantom fired, or in the case of the Jedi, threw their weapons at the Gravemind in a desperate attempt to keep it at bay. The hulking beast stumping back as the combined shots hit it's head. Angered by the pain it opened it's mouth and let out a roar.

The roar did not last long as a bright blur beam tore through the mouth and created an exit wound. The Gravemind stumbled back, and fell over, stunned but not dead. The Rookie looked up from his Spartan accelerator, which now had a power level of zero. He dropped the weapon out of the Phantom and watched as it fell to the earth. The Rookie felt a hand clap on his should, and smiled as he heard Aaron say "Nice shot."

"Back away from the doors, I'm closing them." Ramore shouted as they began to head towards the upper atmosphere.

Vadmare grinded his mandibles anxiously. According to the connection he had established to it, the NOVA bomb had only two minutes until it went off and the Phantoms carrying it and the ground team still hadn't returned. Another minute in a half and he would have to give the order to go to slipspace, like the rest of the fleet had already done.

"Sir!" crackled a voice through the Battle-Net.

"Ramore!" exclaimed Vadmare "I feared the worst where are you?"

"About to land in the hanger," said Ramore "Only one Phantom made it so don't wait for the others."

"You better hurry up," said Vadmare as he looked at the countdown which was now at **1:15 **or soon we'll all be ash!"

"Hold on…landing…hanger doors closing…Alright we're aboard MAKE THE JUMP!" said Ramore roaring the last few words.

"You heard him!" Vadmare shouted to the bridge crew as they opened a rift and the _Glorious Victory _disappeared into Slipspace.

Back on Mustafar, the Gravemind began to stir. Attempted, and failing to stand up, it noticed the red blinking timer in the wrecked Phantom. **0:03 0:02 0:01**. _"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" _roared the Gravemind as the timer hit zero. At that second nine nuclear warheads incased in lithium detonated. The lithium contained the explosion, forcing it in among itself and causing it to strengthen itself a hundredfold. The exclusions grew so powerful that broke free of the lithium, and by that point it was so powerful that it consumed all of Mustafar nearly instantly. Not a single living thing, Flood or otherwise, survived.

In the Phantom that had just barely made it onto the _Glorious Victory _everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Over," said Ahsoka "The war…It's finally over."

"I think I speak for everyone when I say Amen, and Hallelujah," said Aaron who had slumped into a sitting position. "You know I heard they're hiring at ONI." Ramore let out a roar of laughter, and the others chuckled slightly at this comment.

This was interrupted when a voice crackled over every single com unit in the Phantom, including the one installed in the Phantom itself. "This is Fleet master Vadmare Katar, fleet wide transmission. The battle of Mustafar has been won, but at a terrible price. 42% of the brave people that came to fight there did not return. I ask all of you now… that you do not forget what happened today. When we return to our homes, people may call us heroes, but they cannot truly understand. Our dreams will be haunted by the screams of the fallen. I ask all of you who sacrificed so much today, remember the pain and suffering, you and your comrades were forced to endure and work to make sure something like this never happens again. This is Vadmare Katar, end transmission." and the coms went silent.

There we go the battle of Mustafar has been won but there is a moral here

War is Hell. There is no such thing as a glorious war. War is an ugly and evil thing and must be avoided at all costs and used only as a last resort. Keep violence to video games were it is ok but remember this. If a man truly believes that a war is glorious and good then you should be wary of his motvies.

FYI the action pretty much stops here so if that's all you're here for I'd stop reading right now if I were you.


	23. Negotiations

Chapter 23

Negotiations

September,23,2587

Three weeks ABM (After the Battle of Mustafar)

A meeting of the Senate was currently underway on Coruscant. "Should we really consider a peace treaty with these Allied Species?" shouted the Mustafaran senator. "Thanks to them, my race is now without a home!"

"The evidence as been laid before you time and time again!" retorted the Togrutan senator "an extremely dangerous parasite was spread all over your planet and threatened to spread further to more worlds. You should be thankful your species still exists!"

"And how do we know that they just won't destroy another planet the moment it 'threatens other worlds' ?

"That is ridiculous!" roared the Twi'lek Senator "These people ensured the Republic's future. Without them Sidious would still be at large and democracy would be vanquished.

Aaron rubbed his eyes with his thumbs as he listened to the senators bicker. He and Ramore had been assigned to guard the Allies Species ambassador Wirnig, an Unggoy. For three days, it had mainly been listening to the senators shout at each other with pretty much no progress being made. He wasn't the only one frustrated. Ramore had given up on paying attention and was reading from a holo-pad when no-one was looking. Even Wirnig's patience seemed to be thinning. "This is ridiculous," Wirnig said, so that only Ramore and Aaron would hear. He had muttered a word in his foreign language so that the other two weren't quite sure what he said, though they had a pretty good idea.

"I must say Romeo was quite a fool," Ramore muttered as he read from his holo-pad. "He is depressed when he is abandoned by Rosaline, but forgets all about her when Juliet comes along. Then when he thinks she's dead he kills himself when, if he had walked outside he probably would've fallen in love with the next attractive female that he saw." Aaron could help but chuckle at Ramore's comment.

"When this is done," said Wirnig "Remind me to tell Fleet Master Katar that you showed excellent resilience under torture."

"Where is Vadmare anyway?" asked Ramore looking up from his pad.

"He is present at the Jedi council meeting, debating if the laws about marriage should be changed." said Wirnig.

"So in other words he's having another shouting match with Windu?" asked Aaron.

"Pretty much," said Wirnig. "I must say you were smart to keep your relationship with Tano a secret from the rest of the Jedi. If they knew you'd probably be in the middle of a firestorm right now." knowledge about the Aaron, Ahsoka relationship had spread quite quickly throughout the Allied Species (Aaron suspected Rtas Vadum). Somehow this information that not become known to the Jedi, for which Aaron and Ahsoka were both grateful. Still Grandmaster Yoda had brought up the debate, believed that it would be for the best if the law was to be overturned.

"Meeting dismissed," came the voice of the temporary chancellor.

"Freedom in other words," said Aaron slapping his helmet on, as he, Ramore, and Wirnig exited the Senate room.

"I am glad I chose a warriors path instead of that of a politician," said Ramore "Otherwise I would've probably have stabbed myself with my own sword by now."

"Heads up we got company and by the looks of it, it isn't friendly." said Aaron

The Mustafaran Senator was approaching. "You," he said pointing at them "I don't know about the other senators but I have no intention of forgiving you for what you did!"

"I'll try to contain my tears," said Aaron sarcastically "Go tell someone who gives a shit."

"You…" said the senator who was unable to continue as he was gasping in pain. Wirnig had walked forward, and punched the senator in a…sensitive spot. The senator collapsed on the ground writhing in pain.

"Count your blessings before you count your curses," said the Unggoy in a vicious voice before turning his back on him.

"Nice punch," said Aaron, as Ramore nodded in approval. "Company again this time it looks friendly."

Anakin approached them stopping when he saw the senator writhing in pain on the ground. "What happened to him?" he asked.

"He pissed off Wirnig nuff' said," said Aaron.

Anakin simply looked at the senator for a few seconds shrugging and went back to the conversation. "Anyway did you guys have any news about the marriage debate?"

"I heard that the 'for' side, it's been fueled greatly ever since Katar jumped in the fight. In reality he just needs to get past Windu and he's won."

"Oh good," said Anakin smiling.

"What's her name?" said Ramore.

"What!" said Anakin.

"Don't," said Ramore "You obviously desire to be with someone free of having to hide your relationship."

"no,no,no you misunderstand," said Anakin hastily "It's just that with Aaron and Ahsoka I'm just concerned about my former students future and I…," Anakin seemed to lose his voice as Ramore glared him. When he finally found it he muttered "Padmé Amidala, and he's pregnent

"The Senator pregnant?!" said Aaron. "And I thought I was asking for trouble."

"Yeah," said Anakin weakly

Aaron was about to speak again when his com unit went off. "Yeah?" he said putting his finger to it.

"Aaron!" came the panicked voice of Ahsoka "Is Anakin with you?"

"Yeah I'm talking with him right now," he said "why?"

"You tell him to get his Chosen One ass over to Padmé's apartment now!" she shouted rather angrily. "Something about a student delivering her teacher's child just feels wrong! You get over here too, we could use someone with medical knowledge."

"Why can't you just bring her to a hospital?" Aaron asked his voice rising slightly.

"Two reasons, one she's was too far along when I got here, and two, you don't take a woman who's in labor on a free ride in a speeder. We're trying to bring the kid into the world, not kill it!"

"ok,ok, I'll tell him," said Aaron "Just don't kill anyone."

"I'll kill him if he isn't here by the time the kid is out!" she shouted before the com line was severed.

'when she's mad you don't give her a reason to attack you, she'll rip your balls off,' he thought as he turned to face Ramore. "Ramore can you handle covering for me?"

"You insult my ability old friend," said Ramore "Of course I can, why?"

"Anakin's about to become a daddy," said Aaron.

"What!" shouted Anakin.

"Where the hell are they?" Ahsoka growled to herself as Padmé gave an extremely loud moan of pain. She heard a high pitched whirring noise and she heard a speeder landing outside. "That them?" she muttered

"WHO THE FUCK TAUGHT YOU TO DRIVE?!" roared a voice that she recognized as Aaron's. "LAST TIME I CHECKED YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GO AGAINST TRAFIC!"

"Hey we got he faster didn't we?" came Anakin's voice

"Yeah that's them," Ahsoka groaned. "Save it for later and get your asses in here!" Anakin came in first with Aaron hot on his heels.

"How far along his she?" Aaron asked producing medical supplies from his bag.

"An hour or two I think?" said Ahsoka "I'm not quite sure."

"Ok," he said injected Padmé, who was lying on the bed in her room, with a small does of Morphine "Does it feel as if the baby is coming out wrong?"

"No," said Padmé faintly.

"Ok," said Aaron "Now I need you to hold on. It's gonna be a tough bunch of hours."

The next six hours were absolute agony for Padmé. Her pain was eased slightly by Aaron's Morphine, and by the force abilities of Ahsoka and Anakin. Yet she was experiencing the most pain she had ever experienced in her life. But after all that hardship she was rewarded as she cradled her son in her arms. "It's a boy


	24. Holy Matrimony and Epilogue

Chapter 24

Holy Matrimony and Epilogue

Well folks it's been fun but this is the end. I hope that you enjoyed this, well you must of if you've stuck with me this far, aw well please review anyway.

December 28, 2587

Four months ABM

"How's it feel?" asked Aayla Secura.

"A little tight, but otherwise it's fine," said Ahsoka. Aayla was helping her into a wedding dress. After all today was the day that she and Aaron tied the knot.

"I don't understand, you fit in it just fine a couple of months ago. What the heck happened in between now and then?" Ahsoka turned to face Aayla and whispered something in her ear. Aayla's eyes widened as Ahsoka pulled away smiling. "Does he know yet?" she whispered.

"I was thinking of telling him at the alter. I think that'll get him just right. Man I wish that Anakin and Padme could be here but unfortunately, Padme's still sore so Anakin still needs to watch the kids." she sighed. "By way what's that on your finger?"

"Nothing," said Aayla, a little too quickly, folding her hands behind her back. Making a quick grab, Ahsoka grasped Aayla's right hand, and pulled it forward. There was a small ring on her ring finger.

"Who?" Ahsoka asked, grinning.

Aayla blushed violently muttering "Kit Fisto."

"Well look here," said Ahsoka smiling "The second the law the prevents marriage gets lifted you go off and get engaged."

"Shut up," she muttered blushing furiously. "Besides your one to talk." Ahsoka blushed herself at his.

"Oh boy," said Aaron "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy," he muttered to himself over and over again.

"I find it ironic how you can look a Gravemind in the eye and not blink, but when you are about to partake in a wedding half a year in the making, you lose your warrior composure," said Ramore who was reading from a holopad. Aaron was wearing a suit, while Ramore wore ceremonial armor. Elite ceremonial armor was customized for each Elite. Ramore had the crest of the Altre family, an Elite dual wielding energy swords while looking up at the heavens, a Halo, a shattered Covenant war ear Chieftain helmet, a fiery planet, and a multi tentacled being shriveling, all painted on it. Aaron knew what each of these things represented, but he was a little more focused on his upcoming hardships.

"It is a normal reaction I suppose," said Ramore looking up from his holopad. "Have you picked out names for your offspring yet?"

"I'm sure Ashoka's got a list somewhere," Aaron said managing a smile. "As a matter of fact, odds are she's gonna get on my ass about getting her pregnant the moment we're done here."

"Eager mother?" asked Ramore.

"Deadly, and beautiful eager mother," said Aaron. "So how'd they get the law against Jedi marriage lifted anyway?"

"Well," said Ramore "With Yoda supporting it, most of the other masters supported him, personally I think Plo Koon knew about you and Ahsoka, he is like a father figure to her. In reality it was mainly Vadmare hammering through Windu's thick skull. After Windu finally caned it was smooth sailing."

"Remind me to thank Vadmare when this is all over," said Aaron.

The Rookie sat alone at a table, a Budweiser in his hand. "Rook that you?" said someone behind him.

"Dutch," came the mechanical voice of the Rookie's computer "Long time no see."

"Yeah, seems like yesterday your boy was just asking you about joining up with the hell jumpers, now he's getting married. Oh but the way I don't now how but someone you didn't invite slipped in."

"Please tell me that it isn't…," but he was interrupted by an African American man walking by and grabbing a beer. "…Romeo," the Rookie finished. 'Great,' he thought 'the last person I wanted here, here.' "So where is everyone else?" he inquired of Dutch.

"I saw Mickey around here somewhere, and I think Buck and Dare were bickering over where to park," said Dutch.

"How you two ladies doing?" said Romeo as he walked over to the table Dutch and the rookie were sitting at.

"I don't recall inviting you," the Rookie typed coolly.

"And?" said Romeo "I ain't gonna pass up free food. By the way I caught a glance of the bride. Man she's got a nice ass." What happened next was so fast, Dutch had a hard time seeing it. The Rookie slammed his fist into Romeo's gut, then smashed his face into the table knocking him out cold. He then placed his Budwiser into Romeo's hand to make it look like he was drunk.

'Note to self,' thought Dutch 'Watch language about the Rookie's soon to be daughter in law.'

"Not a word," the Rookie said "now sit down it's starting." Everyone was sitting down, and Ahsoka was beginning to walk down the aisle to a rather nervous Aaron. Dutch looked on as the two stood before the priest as he said his words. After that they turned to each other, exchanging their vows, saying how much they loved each other, how they had saved each others lives, and how they would always watch out for each other. Dutch shot a glance at the Rookie and saw that a tear had slipped from his eye.

There was a quite scuffling noise, and Mickey appeared and quietly sat down. "Hey," he whispered to Dutch "What did I miss?"

"Just in time for the big scene," said Dutch "Oh by the way you missed the Rook knocking out Romeo." At this point, if he had been looking, Dutch would've seen Ahsoka whispering in Aaron's ear.

"Aaron," whispered Ahsoka "I need to tell you something."

"Can't it wait?" he whispered back "Or is it really that imperative?"

"It is," she whispered fighting with all of her might to hold back a smile.

"What?" he whispered, faintly registering that the priest was about to tell them to kiss.

"Aaron," she whispered a tear falling from her eye "I'm pregnant." The priest was about to tell the couple to kiss, when Aaron pulled Ahsoka in for one, who happily obliged.

No one said anything about this except for one person. "Saw it coming," said Ramore grinning.

Epilogue

December ,28, 2607

A sweaty Togrutan woman opened the door to a house and walked in. She wore ODST armor, with an assault rifle on the back and a light saber at the belt. "I swear to god," she muttered to herself "Why can't the damn Mustafarian separatists just find a rock to live on? I almost missed mom and dad's anniversary because they decided to go harass a village because they're upset that their planet was destroyed, it's been twenty years get over it. Huh, a Jedi that believes in a god, first time for everything I guess."

She was Anoka Colton, daughter of Ahsoka and Aaron Colton, named after her grandmother on her mother's side, which was all Ahsoka remember of her mother. She had inherited two things genetically from her parents, her mother's force sensitivity, and her father's genetic augmentations. While she was officially a Jedi knight, she was also officially an ODST too. As her uncle Ramore said, she could walk in two worlds.

She had had dinner with her parents afterward, who were as always happy to see her. They wouldn't be coming home this night, as they said they needed some "alone time." Anoka didn't know what that meant, and she wanted it to stay that way. "Aw well," she said as she headed towards the stairs "I'm freaking exhausted, and there's nothing to do. Bed time. Maybe tomorrow I'll go visit grandpa, he always loves having me around, and I love helping him garden." smiling wearily, Anoka climbed up the stairs, collapsing onto her bet the moment she reached it and falling asleep.

Well there you go, fighting for a purpose is finally finished. Hope you enjoyed the ride, please review and tell me what you thought

I think I'll do a Fallout 3 fanfic now


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